On June 14, 2024, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) organized a meeting attended by representatives from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), over 25 banks, and various other financial institutions including government, private, and global banks. Also present were members from the Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI) and all telecom service providers.
Key discussions during the meeting included:
- Allocation of the 160 series exclusively for transactional and service voice calls as per TRAI’s recommendations, initially for entities regulated by RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, and PFRDA. This measure aims to facilitate easier identification of calling entities and prevent fraud.
- Migration of the 140 series, currently used for promotional purposes, to the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform and operationalization of digital consent scrubbing. These initiatives are expected to significantly reduce spam calls from 10-digit numbers.
- Detailed deliberation on the Digital Consent Facility (DCA) established under TRAI’s TCCCPR-2018 Regulations, enabling telecom service providers to acquire digital consent for promotional communications.
- Discussion on the responsibilities and compliance obligations of senders such as banks and insurance companies under TRAI regulations, including whitelisting URLs/Apks in content templates and immediate actions against misuse of sender credentials.
All participants emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts to combat spam, particularly through voice calls, and pledged full cooperation for the timely implementation of TRAI’s initiatives.
