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Mumbai, July 22, 2025:
In a major step toward securing India’s digital financial ecosystem, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) hosted a key meeting of the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCoR) in New Delhi. The meeting brought together top officials from RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, MeitY, and other key bodies to coordinate stronger safeguards against rising cases of spam, telecom misuse, and digital payment-linked frauds.
🔐 Key Decisions & Initiatives
📞 Mandatory Shift to 1600-Series Call Numbers
To build customer trust in commercial banking and service calls, regulators have agreed to migrate all transactional and service calls to the 1600-number series. This phased rollout, guided by sectoral regulators, aims to create a dedicated and verified caller ID system for the banking, insurance, and finance sectors.
📲 Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) Pilot Launched
A major pilot project has been launched to digitize customer consent for commercial communications. This initiative replaces unverifiable offline consents with a secure, tamper-proof digital system that allows customers to:
Digitally give, view, and revoke consent
Manage marketing and service communications in one place
Improve trust in banking and telecom outreach
The TRAI–RBI coordinated pilot includes 7 major banks: SBI, PNB, ICICI, HDFC, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, along with 8 telecom service providers. Four working groups will focus on technical execution, operations, and public awareness.
This project was preceded by a full-day TRAI-RBI workshop on July 21, where all participants agreed to move forward in a unified and sustained manner.
🚨 Real-Time Action Against Telecom-Based Fraud
To shut down fraudsters quickly, the committee discussed setting up an automated data-sharing system between:
I4C (Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre)
DoT’s Digital Intelligence Platform
DLT systems of telecom operators
This will allow authorities to disconnect numbers linked to scams in real-time, preventing continued abuse of telecom networks.
📡 Crackdown on Misuse of Enterprise Telecom Lines
Regulators flagged misuse of SIP and PRI lines for mass spam messages. Proposals include:
Issuing enterprise lines from specific number ranges
Enforcing stricter issuance and usage conditions
These steps aim to prevent spam without affecting genuine businesses.
💬 Revamped SMS Header Portal Launched
TRAI has upgraded its official portal smsheader.trai.gov.in to help consumers identify the senders of commercial SMS messages. This initiative improves transparency and user control over SMS-based communications.
💳 NPCI Joins the Fight Against Financial Fraud
With UPI and mobile banking being frequent targets for scammers, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has joined JCoR as a strategic stakeholder, adding crucial insight into payment systems and fraud prevention.
🗣️ Statement from TRAI Chairman
> “In a digital-first economy, cross-sector collaboration among regulators is vital for protecting consumers and enabling secure services,” said TRAI Chairman Shri Anil Kumar Lahoti.
He praised the launch of DoT’s new Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) to flag scam-related phone numbers and called for faster implementation of safeguards across all sectors.
This multi-agency initiative is a landmark move to ensure safer digital communication, secure banking, and better fraud tracking for Indian consumers.
