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Informist, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025

--RBI notifies prescriptions for prevention of fincl frauds on calls, SMS

MUMBAI – With digital frauds through the use of calls and short messaging service on the rise, the Reserve Bank of India notified ways Friday to prevent such activities, and told all regulated entities to comply with its prescriptions and implement the safeguards by Mar. 31.

In the prescriptions, the RBI stressed that regulated entities must come up with standard operating procedures to monitor mule accounts and cyber frauds. It urged regulated entities to monitor and clean customer databases using the mobile number revocation list, a technology developed by the government.

It said senders of commercial communication, including banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, and stockbrokers, are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality and security of their customers' data. To maintain the confidentiality of data, senders must ensure that there are a minimum number of aggregator-registered telemarketers in the chain between the sender and the access provider, the RBI said.

"The mobile number of a customer has emerged as a ubiquitous identifier, instrumental in account authentication and verification process, receiving sensitive payment communication such as OTPs (one-time passwords), transaction alerts, account updates, etc," the RBI said. "The mobile number, however, can also be misused by scamsters in multiple ways for committing various types of online and other frauds."

The RBI mandated regulated entities to get registered with any of the telecom service providers prior to sending commercial communications through voice calls. It further asked the entities to only use the '1600xx' numbering series to make transactional or service calls and '140xx' for promotional voice calls. Use of any 10-digit mobile number other than these two series would result in strong action against the senders, the banking regulator said. This could lead to disconnection of all telecom resources for a period of up to two years and blacklisting of the sender for that period.  End

Reported by Christina Titus 

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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