The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced on Tuesday that the telecom sector will transition to a mandatory migration to a dedicated '1600-series' number for all transactional and service calls originating from the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sectors in phases. This move aims to curb the rampant issue of spam calls.
The regulatory body held a high-level meeting with representatives from various key organizations. The meeting, convened at TRAI headquarters, included participants from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
They were joined by officials from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), underscoring a unified approach to a complex problem. Regulators discussed establishing specific timelines for this mandatory migration to the '1600-series' for all transactional and service calls from the BFSI sectors.
"In an increasingly digitalized world, cross sectoral collaboration among regulators is crucial for coordinated enablement of services and protection of consumers from harm. In a digital first economy, collaboration among financial sector regulators, digital communication regulators and the security agencies becomes paramount. TRAI appreciates the swift collaboration being facilitated through JCoR in building a reliable and safer communication environment," said TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti.
Furthermore, the committee deliberated on the imperative for automated exchange of spam and cyber fraud data. This data exchange will occur among the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), and the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform maintained by access providers.
The committee also highlighted the growing misuse of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and PRI (Primary Rate Interface) telecom lines for bulk spamming. To mitigate this issue, options under discussion include issuing these lines from a designated number range and imposing additional safeguards to ensure their responsible use.