RBI gets in on the battle against spam messages

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Editor's note: The Reserve Bank of India has joined hands with the Department of Telecommunications and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to find a definitive solution to the menace of telemarketing scammers and spammers. I hear (from an industry official in the know) that a committee was formed recently with participation from other financial regulators, such as the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.  There’s more. At a recent meeting with the DoT and TRAI, officials from the central bank proposed the creation of a database that would serve as a “white list” of all financial institutions under supervision, along with details about their registered call center numbers and registered SMS headers (sender IDs such as “TM-HDFCBK”). This database, I’m told, will also consist of a list of numbers and telemarketers flagged as fraudulent by customers. The committee is likely to ask various industry stakeholders to coordinate with one another in building this repository, which would also contain information about permissible message templates that can be used to reach existing or prospective …