The Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) has issued a Circular establishing regulatory prescriptions and institutional safeguards for prevention of financial frauds perpetrated using voice calls and SMS. The Circular has been issued with a view to mitigate the potential misuse of mobile numbers and prevention of financial frauds perpetrated using voice calls and SMS. The specified Regulated Entities (REs) are to ensure compliance with the requirements detailed below by 31st March, 2025.
Applicability:
The provisions of the Circular are applicable to the following REs:
- All Non-Banking Financial Companies (including Housing Finance Companies)
- All Credit Information Companies
- All Prepaid Payment Instrument Issuers
- All Payment Aggregators
- All Payment Systems Participants
- Payment System Providers
- All Commercial Banks (including Regional Rural Bank, Small Finance Banks, Payment Banks, and Local Area Banks)
- All Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks
- State Co-operative Banks
- District Central Co-operative Banks
Compliances of REs to be ensured by 31st March, 2025:
- Utilize the Mobile Number Revocation List (MNRL) available on the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) developed by Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, Government of India to monitor and clean their customer database.
- Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) incorporating the required action to be taken including, inter alia, updating the registered mobile number(RMN) after due verification
- Ensure enhanced monitoring of accounts linked to these revoked mobile numbers for preventing the linked accounts from being operated as Money Mules and / or being involved in cyber frauds, etc.
- Provide the verified details of customer care numbers to DIP for enabling DoT to publish them on the “Sanchar Saathi” portal (https://sancharsaathi.gov.in/). The details may be shared on the DoT email adg.diu-dot@gov.in
- Undertake transactional / service calls only using ‘1600xx’ numbering series, when operationalized; undertake promotional voice calls only through phone numbers using ‘140xx’ numbering series;
- Follow the “Important Guidelines for sending commercial communication using telecom resources through Voice Calls or SMS” issued by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and annexed to the circular.
- Undertake awareness measures in this regard through emails, SMS and other modes, including in vernacular languages.
Please refer to the document hyperlinked below for a detailed read of the Circular.
Source: Reserve Bank of India
