GTBank, one of Nigeria’s most innovative commercial banks has again raised the bar on USSD by setting transaction limits at N500, 000, said a source close to the matter.
The new limit means that customers are able increase their transactions up to N500, 000 from N200, 000 it used to be. The bank is the first to commercial bank of financial institution in the country to set such limit.
It should also be noted that GTBank has played a pioneering role in the development of USSD technology in Nigeria with its now famous *737#.
Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (Data) is a communications protocol used by Global System for Mobile (GSM) to send text between a mobile phone and an application program in the network. It is similar to Short Messaging Service (SMS), but unlike SMS, USSD transactions occur during the session only. GTBank’s *737# was created in the middle of 2014.
Prior to 2014, most services by banks require a visit to a branch, completing a form and hoping it gets done on the system. In pioneering the USSD innovation, GTBank designed it in such a way that customers are able to input their bank accounts and then use the last four digits on their ATM cards as the PIN.
Johnson Ajani, Product Manager at Fidelity Bank told BusinessDay in a chat, that USSD as a concept was explored to open up bank access to mobile banking to more bank customers.
“After the apps age, banks retreated and observed that the adoption was low because more than 80 percent of bank customers were not using smart phone app. So the apps age was not as successful as it should be considering the resources channelled to drive adoption,” the expert said.
The new limit set by GTBank, according to our source, is positive for the industry and means that USSD and mobile banking has come of age. It is now 50 percent off limits for interbank transactions on internet banking.
It also brings flexibility and convenience for traders and SMEs. Thirdly, it means GTBank has again raised the bar for other banks to catch-up. For example, while United Bank for Africa (UBA) is doing N20,000 per transactions and Keystone Bank does N50,000 limits per transaction. Fidelity Bank which does N200, 000 as limits is the only bank that tends to match GTBank and joins the league of banks that show they understand what the customers want.
