The telecom regulator has met financial sector regulators and top banks to discuss the efficient use and implementation of the 160-series numbering series which has been newly allocated for transactional and service calls.
Last month, in an attempt to reduce pesky calls, the telecom department had allocated 160 numbering series for transactional and service calls made by businesses for commercial purposes.
“In the first stage, it (160-series) has been earmarked for all entities regulated by RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA. Once it is implemented, it shall help in the easy identification of the calling entity and will prevent the duping of innocent citizen from the fraudsters,” the telecom regulatory authority of India (Trai) said in a release on Friday.
Trai had met the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (|RDAI), more than 25 Banks and other financial Institutions and all the telecom service providers on Friday.
All central and state government entities shall use 10-digit phone numbers telephone numbers in the format of 1600ABCXXX whereas financial entities regulated by RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA shall use 1601ABCXXX, the department of telecommunications (DoT) said in a notification late Tuesday.
Previously, only 140 number series were allocated for all kinds of commercial purposes. Post Tuesday’s mandate these will be classified into (140) marketing and (160 and 161) for service calls to easily identify the purpose of the caller.
As per Friday’s release, the authority also clarified that the 140 series, at present being used for promotional purposes, “is being migrated to DLT platform and scrubbing of digital consent is also being operationalized. With the implementation of above two measures, substantial control on spam calls from 10-digit numbers is expected.”
It also said that banks and other financial institutions must whitelist their URLs/ Apks in the content templates of SMSes, use minimum number of headers and content templates, and take immediate action against the entity or telemarketer in case of misuse of senders’ credential etc.
