MTN Nigeria has said that banks are indebted to it to the tune of N40.3 billion as of the end of first quarter 2021 on the account of unstructured supplementary service data (USSD). MTN informed that its digital revenue grew by 101 per cent and fintech revenue by 28.5 per cent as customers continued to adopt more digital products and services, a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The firm, in its Q1 financial report, said the enterprise business continued its recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown as the economy improved. It, however, said service revenue for the enterprise was largely flat year-on-year (YoY) mainly due to the non-recognition of USSD revenue in Q1. The telecommunications firm said normalised growth (excluding USSD revenue) was 2.6 per cent, adding that “we continue to engage with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the deposit money banks (DMBs) to conclude the operational modalities for the new pricing framework that has been agreed upon for USSD services. “The mechanism for and timing of the recovery of the industry-wide outstanding debts that exist for USSD services provided to the DMBs form part of this process. As of the end of Q1, N40.3 billion was due to MTN Nigeria.