According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), telecom operators have started implementing the ‘1600’ number series for voice calls originating from banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) companies. The move aims to help consumers easily identify genuine transactional and service-related calls, thereby improving trust and reducing fraud.
The initiative builds on the efforts of the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCoR), formed by TRAI in 2022. The committee included representatives from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
The JCoR had recommended stricter measures to prevent the misuse of headers and content templates, in accordance with the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018).
Further, in April this year, the committee finalised the modalities for implementing the 1600 series for service and transactional calls from government and financial sector entities. This followed the onboarding of commercial communication senders onto the digital consent acquisition (DCA) platform.
Some entities, including SBI Card, have already started using the new number prefix. Over time, TRAI plans to make it mandatory for all service and transaction calls from major commercial and government-linked BFSI players to use the 1600 series.
