New Delhi: Telecom companies have voiced their concerns over recent guidelines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which may have their bearings on delivery of important service messages, including one-time passwords (OTPs) for online transactions, from November 1.
The new rules envisage that telecom operators must ensure that messages sent from the principal entities (PEs) to customers can be tracked. Currently, telecom operators do not have the facility, which according to them, might be tantamount to breach of the subscribers’ trust.
A senior official of the Jio said that fresh guidelines from the TRAI focus on customers, who may potentially face difficulty with services like online payments, delivery of parcels, etc, as transactions are linked with OTPs. The fresh norms will be applicable across categories, including banks, e-commerce platforms and financial institutions. “This means any messages with mismatched sender details or without a clear sender identity will be blocked,” clarified the official.
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Telecom operators said that telemarketers and PEs might face technical restrictions to follow the TRAI norms, as they do not have the necessary technology to track the messages. Accordingly, the telecom regulator has been urged to extend the deadline by a minimum of two months to make the necessary amends to the system.
According to telecom officials, OTPs play a major role in securing online transactions and ensuring that only authorised person can make the payments. Reports say that telecom companies and banks are preparing to introduce an alternative safety measure to prevent fraud.
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Telecom companies informed the regulator that telemarketers and PEs are lagging behind in modifying the system and hence they might require additional time to ensure appropriate scrubbing of the messaging traffic to minimise any disruption. They, however, claimed that their system would be ready for the November 1 deadline. The TRAI has also been requested to allow them to put the mandate into “logger mode” beginning November 1, allowing messages to flow without disruption in the event of discrepancies.
This is the second time when the telecom companies have asked a one-month deadline extension to adhere to the regulator’s guidelines. In response to the telcos’ request for additional time to set up necessary systems, the regulator had earlier extended the deadline for whitelisting messages, including URLs, OTT links and other related information, by one month, to October 1. After the extension, most of the PEs and telemarketers have come on board with the systems operating smoothly, according to the report.