Tag: Telecom regulator

HDFC Bank, SBI, others not adhering to norms on bulk SMSes, says TRAI; sets Mar 31 deadline for full compliance, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


The telecom regulator on Friday released a list of 40 “defaulter” principal entities, including large banks like HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank, that are not fulfilling the regulatory norms on bulk commercial messages despite repeated reminders. Hardening its stance on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) warned that defaulting entities should comply with the stipulated requirements by March 31, 2021 “to avoid any disruption in the communication with customers” from April 1, 2021.

“As sufficient opportunity has been given to principal entities/ telemarketers to comply with the regulatory requirements and that the consumers cannot be deprived of the benefits of the regulatory provisions any further, therefore it has been decided that from April 1, 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing process due to non-compliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected” by the system, TRAI said in a statement.

TRAI’s norms for commercial messages, based on blockchain technology, aim to curb unsolicited and fraudulent messages.

The norms require bonafide entities sending commercial text messages to register message header and templates with telecom operators. The SMSes and OTPs, when sent by user entities (banks, payment companies and others), are checked against the templates registered on the blockchain platform — a process called SMS scrubbing.

TRAI has analysed the scrubbing data and reports submitted by the telecom service providers and also held a meeting with telemarketers/ aggregators on March 25, 2021.

“It has been informed that Principal Entities including major banks like State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank etc are not transmitting mandatory parametres like content template IDs, PE IDs etc. even in those cases where content templates have been registered, while sending such messages to telecom service providers for delivery,” TRAI said.

The regulator, on analysing the cases of failure of messages due to scrubbing, found that various principal entities and telemarketers are not fulfilling regulatory requirements.

In the absence of these necessary parameters, the messages are bound to be rejected by the system during the scrubbing process.

TRAI has released a list of 40 “defaulter” principal entities which includes large banks like Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, and big names like Reliance Retail Ltd, and Samsung India Electronics Pvt Ltd.

Others in the list include Life Insurance Corporation of India and National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.

Separately, TRAI has also issued a list of 40 “defaulter telemarketers”.

“Sufficient time has already been given to the Principal Entities/ telemarketers and other entities to comply with the regulatory framework. However, it appears that few entities are not only indifferent but also not serious enough in complying with the provisions of the regulations thereby causing inconvenience to customers,” the TRAI statement said.

This “should not and cannot” be allowed to continue, it asserted.

Enforcement of TRAI regulations is vital as delivery of non compliant messages allows fraudulent miscreants to conveniently misuse the message delivery system for cheating and defrauding customers, it contended.

TRAI said entities involved in sending out bulk commercial messages should fulfil regulatory requirements.

It urged regulatory bodies like RBI, SEBI, IRDA, central and state government departments and other establishments to “impress upon Principal entities” under their jurisdiction to follow the regulatory requirements strictly.

Earlier this month, transactions, including banking, credit card payment and certain other services that involve SMSes and OTP generation, had faced an major outage when telcos implemented the TRAI norms for commercial messages, without the balancing measures in place by principal entities (entities that send out bonafide bulk, commercial messages).

Following the disruption, TRAI has given a temporary breather to such companies, but had insisted that they take immediate measures to comply with the norms.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , ,

Trai urges RBI to direct banks to comply with norms on bulk messages, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


NEW DELHI: The telecom regulator has urged Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to issue directions to banks to comply with Trai’s norms on bulk messages, sources said on Tuesday.

It has also shared with the RBI a list of such banks that have not adhered to Trai’s regulatory requirements, as also relevant data on SMS traffic failures, sources added.

Separately, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in a statement said that all major banks and big telemarketers sending SMS have failed to fulfil regulatory requirements despite repeated reminders.

Sources privy to the development told PTI that the telecom regulator has approached the Reserve Bank of India to get a direction issued to all banks and financial institutions to comply with stipulated rules aimed at curbing pesky calls and bulk messages. Trai has also written to the Department of Financial Services on the matter.

The regulator informed the RBI that as per the provisions of the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, the telecom operators have activated the content scrubbing from March 17, 2021. However, for the time being, even the traffic which has failed in the content scrubbing is allowed to be delivered, to avoid the inconvenience to the consumers.

Trai has further said that based on the report submitted by the telecom operators, it has been observed that certain banks have still not complied with regulatory requirements.

Noting that telcos are intimating the failure reasons to concerned ‘Principal Entities’, Trai has urged the RBI to direct such banks to fulfil the regulatory requirements immediately, failing which their communication to customers may be disrupted, sources said.

Additionally, the regulator has also reached out to state government departments, chief secretaries, and all major government entities that send out bulk messages on the bulk message issue, sources added.

Meanwhile, Trai said in a statement that it “once again requests all the Entities who are using the telecom resources to send bulk messages to the consumers, to fulfil the regulatory requirements immediately so that there would not be any disruption in the communication to the customers.”

Trai has issued the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR, 2018) on July 19, 2018, to curb the menace of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), which put in place a framework for controlling UCC.

The regulations entirely came into force with effect from February 29, 2019.

According to the rules all entries that send one-time password (OTP), transactional messages, service messages or commercial messages are required to fulfil regulatory requirements for sending bulk communication.

“The regulatory provisions not only help in preventing spam but also help in preventing fraudulent messages purporting to originate from banks, financial institutions, or other trusted sources,” Trai said.

Trai said that when telecom operators started filtering out non-compliance messages from the system there was a huge drop in sms sent to people from applications.

“It was observed that some of the principal entities have not fulfilled the requirements as envisaged TCCCPR, 2018 even after two years despite being fully aware of the regulations and the consequences,” Trai said.

The regulator temporarily suspended the scrubbing of SMS for seven days on March 9 to enable principle entities to register the SMS templates to avoid inconvenience faced by the customers.

“Unfortunately, despite repeated communication, all major banks and big telemarketers sending SMS have failed to fulfill regulatory requirements. All are being notified individually also. Trai has called for further reports from telecom service providers,” Trai statement said.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , ,