For years, Nigeria’s recycled phone numbers have been a fraudster’s playground. You give up a SIM, the telco reassigns it, and suddenly, the new owner has a front-row seat to your bank alerts and BVN data.
On Thursday, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) officially moved to kill this vector for financial fraud with the unveiling of the Telecoms Identity Risk Management System (TIRMS).
It’s a cross-sector source of truth designed to let banks and security agencies verify if a number has been swapped, barred, or recycled before they grant access to services.
But while the NCC is playing offense, MTN Nigeria is playing realist-in-chief.
Is it the API Problem?
According to Anthonia Adaba, MTN’s manager of telecoms laws and regulations, the industry already has a SIM-swap notification system involving the NCC, the CBN, and NIBSS. The catch? Hardly any banks actually use it.
MTN’s argument is simple: why build a new, expensive platform (TIRMS) if the financial institutions, the people who actually need the data to stop fraud, won’t integrate with the existing one?
Without a CBN mandate forcing banks to plug into the pipe, TIRMS risks becoming another ‘Zombie API’, functionally brilliant but practically ignored.
The 14-Day Warning: A Logistics Nightmare?
The NCC’s proposed customer first rule, requiring telcos to give users a 14-day heads-up before deactivating a line, also hit a snag during the consultative forum.
The regulator wants a 14-day notice via email or alternative numbers. MTN’s counter-arguments show most SIM registration data doesn’t include mandatory emails; even where emails exist, they are often unverified or dead, and if a user’s primary line is inactive (the reason for deactivation), they likely aren’t checking a secondary line either.
MTN is pushing for a best-effort approach rather than a rigid mandate that could lead to regulatory fines for failed deliveries.
The Airtime Refund Question
One interesting nugget for the everyday consumer: MTN is asking for clarity on what happens to your money when your line is deactivated.
They’ve proposed a framework where subscribers can reclaim unused airtime balances within a specific window, provided they can prove ownership.
Dr. Aminu Maida, the executive vice chairman of the NCC, is clearly pushing for a unified digital ecosystem, but the success of TIRMS won’t depend on the code the NCC writes.
It will depend on whether the CBN can force Nigeria’s banks to sit at the table.
As the digital economy grows, a phone number (MSISDN) is no longer just for calls; it’s a digital passport. The NCC is trying to make sure that passport can’t be forged, but the telcos are reminding everyone that even the best passport is useless if the border guards (the banks) don’t check it.
