TRAI implements new SMS norms again, says no major issues faced

KEY STORY

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said that it resumed the process of scrubbing out unregistered messages today, after holding meetings with various stakeholders and asking them to take remedial measures.

• “Reports from telecom service providers indicate that no major issues have come to notice leaving few cases and messages which are in accordance with the regulations are getting delivered successfully,” TRAI said.

• “Telecom service providers have been instructed to make special efforts to identify the cause of rejection of SMS, if there is any rejection from some Principal Entities/Telemarketers/ Aggregators,” it added.

• TRAI had notified the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) back in 2018 with an objective to regulate commercial text messages and help curb the nuisance of spam SMSes.

• The regulation which fully came into effect on 2019 required Principal Entities to register details like their SMS headers, content templates and customer consent templates on portals created by telecom service providers.

• Messages from unregistered companies and templates were to be scrubbed out as per the system. These Principal Entities essentially include any company that sends messages for promotional or financial transaction-related purposes to customers, like banks, retailers, shopping apps etc.

• Over the past month, TRAI extended the deadline for compliance to the norms twice – once from March 8 to March 17, and later to March 31. The extension was granted after customers faced issues in receiving text messages and OTPs from entities that failed to register by March 8.

CONCLUSION

• TRAI said it implemented the norms on March 17 but asked telecom service providers to not scrub out any messages and sought details of unregistered entities.

• TRAI had said on March 26 that 40 entities failed to comply with the regulations and the list included all major banks like State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank and entities like the Life Insurance Corporation of India and National Stock Exchange.

• The telecom regulator had also reached out to other regulators like RBI, SEBI, IRDAI to direct entities under their jurisdiction to comply with the norms.