New Delhi, Nov 19 (IANS) The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday issued a direction mandating the last dates by which adoption of the ‘1600’ numbering series should be completed by entities in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector, and government organisations to clearly distinguish their service and transactional calls from other commercial communications.

The direction has been issued with the objective of curbing spam, and preventing fraudulent activities perpetrated through voice calls.

In response to TRAI’s regulatory initiative, the ‘1600’ numbering series has been assigned by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for allocation to entities in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector, regulated by the RBI, SEBI, and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) and Government organisations. The series will enable citizens to reliably identify legitimate calls originating from regulated financial institutions, an official statement said.

The directive states that the adoption of '1600' numbering series for all Mutual Funds and Asset Management Companies (AMCs) shall be completed by February 15, 2026.

In the case of Qualified Stockbrokers (QSBs) the adoption of '1600' numbering series shall be completed by March 15, 2026.

For the time being, other SEBI-registered intermediaries may voluntarily migrate to the 1600-series after verification of their registration details, the directive states.

Commercial banks (including Public Sector Banks, Private Sector Banks, and Foreign Banks) will have to adopt the 1600 series by January 1, 2026.

Large NBFCs (asset size above Rs 5,000 crore), Payments Banks, and Small Finance Banks will have to onboard by February 1, 2026 while the remaining NBFCs, Co-operative Banks, Regional Rural Banks, and smaller entities shall onboard by March 1, 2026, the directive states.

Central record keeping agencies and Pension Fund Managers shall onboard by February 15, 2026.

The matter of mandating last date for adoption of 1600 series by the entities in the insurance sector is under discussion with IRDAI, and will be notified subsequently, the official statement said.

The structured and time-bound adoption of the 1600-series is expected to significantly improve consumer safety and help curb impersonation-based financial frauds perpetrated through voice calls.

After the assignment of the series and allocation of numbering resources to the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), TRAI has regularly engaged with TSPs and the BFSI sector regulators for adoption of 1600 series by BFSI sector entities. Consequent to these efforts, about 485 entities have already adopted 1600 series, subscribing to a total of over 2800 numbers, the statement said.

Based on TRAI’s interactions with stakeholders, it was considered that time is now ripe to mandate time-bound completion of the exercise so that entities continuing to use standard 10-digit numbers for service and transactional calls, also shift to 1600 series numbers to reduce the risk of fraudulent or misleading calls being made in the guise of trusted financial institutions, the statement explained.

TRAI has taken inputs regarding timelines from the regulators of the BFSI sector, following deliberations held during the meetings of the Joint Committee of Regulators. Based on the consultations held with them, a phase-wise implementation schedule has now been issued, the statement added.

--IANS

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