NEW DELHI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday dismissed the telecom operators concerns and eliminated tariffs for unstructured supplementary service data (USSD)-based mobile banking and payment services from 50 paise per session earlier to nil.
The regulator body said it is a bid to boost digital financial inclusion and protect the interests of ordinary feature phone users. For this service, TRAI today has made an amendment in its Telecommunication Tariff (68th Amendment) Order, 2022.
“After analysing comments received from stakeholders and other data/ information available with it, the Authority is of the view that to protect the interests of the USSD users and to promote digital financial inclusion, rationalization of USSD charges is required. In view of the same, the Authority has decided that the subscribers will not be charged USSD for mobile banking and payment service,” said TRAI.
USSD is a technology that allows users without an internet connection to use mobile banking through certain codes like *99# code. It displays a message of balance deduction on the device screen after a call.