KEY POINTS
- FCCPC says it has not banned airtime borrowing or data advance services, and no directive was issued against them.
- MTN Nigeria paused Xtratime, citing compliance with the DEON consumer lending regulations that took effect July 21, 2025.
- The commission says some operators missed the Jan. 5, 2026, compliance deadline, and any service pauses are business decisions, not a regulator-imposed ban.
Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has pushed back against reports claiming it shut down airtime borrowing and data advance services, calling the suggestion inaccurate and saying operators, not regulators, made the call to pause their offerings.
The clarification, issued Friday, follows MTN Nigeria’s recent decision to suspend Xtratime, the long-running service that lets subscribers borrow credit when their balance runs low. The operator said it made the move to comply with the Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional consumer lending regulations (DEON), which the government gazetted and implemented on July 21, 2025.
Why the commission introduced the rules
The commission’s statement noted: “The commission has not prohibited airtime borrowing or data advance services, and we issued no directive preventing consumers from accessing lawful telecom value-added services.”
The commission said its intervention followed a surge in complaints about opaque charges, unexplained deductions, aggressive recovery tactics and poor disclosure by providers. Those grievances, it said, prompted the DEON framework under the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act of 2018, part of a wider effort to extend to telecom-led credit the same protections the commission has pushed onto digital loan apps.
The rules require proper registration, responsible lending conduct, clear disclosure of fees and terms, accessible complaint channels, data protection safeguards and stronger accountability for third-party partners. In September 2025, the commission described the framework as a comprehensive template for transparency and ethical loan recovery in Nigeria’s fast-growing digital credit market.
Many subscribers treat airtime-advance products like Xtratime as a routine lifeline when wallets run dry at awkward moments, but consumer groups have long complained that deductions are sometimes larger than expected and that dispute channels can be hard to navigate.
Airtime advances have become a small but steady revenue stream for operators in Nigeria’s prepaid-heavy market, where subscribers typically top up in small, frequent amounts. Industry watchers are now waiting to see whether other major carriers follow MTN Nigeria’s lead or keep the service running while working toward compliance.
Commission pushes back on critics
Operators were initially granted a 90-day window from July 2025 to regularize their operations. That deadline was later extended, and in November 2025 the commission set Jan. 5, 2026, as the final compliance date. Some providers, it said, failed to meet the mark and continued operating under models that had drawn public complaints.
The commission also accused certain telecom operators of engaging in exclusionary arrangements that violate competition law.The FCCPC argued that it designed the DEON rules to open the market and encourage fairer competition between providers, including fintech partners eyeing a slice of the lucrative credit-advance business.
“Service providers should therefore understand any temporary suspension, restriction, or operational change they introduce as a business or compliance decision, not a ban the FCCPC imposed,” the commission added.
The agency reserved sharper language for what it called vested interests pushing misinformation to stall reform.
“It is inaccurate to attribute avoidable disruption to regulation where regulated entities had adequate notice and sufficient opportunity to comply,” the statement said. “Attempts to misrepresent temporary service inconvenience as the result of lawful consumer regulation are mischievous. Nigerians finally deserve accurate information, not sensational claims.”