The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) hosted a meeting of the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCoR) to advance coordinated measures against spam, fraud, and misuse of telecom infrastructure. The forum focused on rolling out collaborative regulatory measures, especially in light of rising digital payment linked frauds.
Regulators discussed setting up timelines for migration to the dedicated 1600 number series for transactional and service call in the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sectors. Considering different scales of operation of entities, it was agreed that migration may be made in a phased manner based on the inputs provided by the sectoral regulators to TRAI.
Further, a major pilot project is underway to enhance consumer control over commercial communications by replacing unverifiable, offline consents for commercial communication with a secure digital consent framework. The new mechanism will enable consumers to digitally register, review, and revoke consents through a simple, unified, and tamper‑proof interface. Coordinated by TRAI and RBI, the pilot includes telecom service providers and major banks such as State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI), Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), Axis Bank, Canara Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Four dedicated working groups will oversee technical, operational, and awareness‑building aspects of the pilot.
Prior to the meeting of the JCoR, a day‑long workshop was conducted on July 21, 2025, jointly by TRAI and RBI, on the DCA pilot in which eight telecom service providers and seven banks, SBI, PNB, ICICI, HDFC, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, participated. Various issues related to digital consent acquisition were deliberated and all the participants agreed to work together in a sustained manner to move forward.
The committee also discussed the requirement of automated exchange of spam and cyber‑fraud data between the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the Digital Intelligence Platform of the DoT, and the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform maintained by access providers. This will enable swift action against the telecom resources of fraudsters such as number disconnection, to prevent them from carrying out further frauds.
The Committee flagged the misuse of session initiation protocol (SIP) and primary rate interface (PRI) telecom lines for bulk spam. Options under discussion include issuing these lines from a designated number range and imposing additional safeguards to ensure responsible use.
Additionally, TRAI has revamped its short message service (SMS) header portal, smsheader.trai.gov.in to empower customers to get information about the entities sending commercial messages using a particular SMS header.
With financial fraud increasingly linked to mobile transactions and unified payments interface (UPI) platforms, the inclusion of NPCI as a special invitee adds a critical payments dimension to the JCoR’s mandate.
Commenting on this, chairman, TRAI, said, “In an increasingly digitalised 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.” He also commended DoT’s recent launch of the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI), which labels numbers associated with financial scams. The Chairman reiterated the need for practical safeguards that deter spam and fraud without placing undue burden on legitimate businesses. He urged sectoral regulators to accelerate implementation within their respective domains and monitor progress closely.
