Apart from calls from firms selling insurance or offering loans all day, mobile phone users in India are also plagued by promotional messages flooding their inbox. This is why the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had made it mandatory for firms to use a blockchain-based DLT flatform to verify and register their headers and templates before sending texts.
In an attempt to provide respite from incessant promotional messages, TRAI has instructed banks, companies, and financial institutions to immediately get their headers and templates verified.
Only those entities who are registered are allowed to send texts, and the headers as well as templates of those who fail to verify them will be blocked.
TRAI will issue the necessary directions in this matter after reviewing the progress made after two weeks.
The headers which are allotted to Principal Entities, are alpha numeric strings that are registered alongside templates.
Messages that PEs send are also scrubbed against those templates and are delivered only if they check out.
TRAI has noticed that telemarketers are misusing a large number of headers and templates which have been registered by several PEs.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India, as well as the Reserve Bank of India and NHA, have also been asked to sensitise institutions about TRAI's drive for reverification of templates to prevent misuse.
