Bank OTP issue – SBI, ICICI, HDFC and other bank customers could face OTP issues from April 1

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced that its SMS regulations will be enforced from April 1.
• Companies that do not comply with its regulations will not be able to send messages to their customers.
• This may also impact users of State Bank of India, ICICI, HDFC and other banks.

OTPs (one-time passwords) from banks have become an essential part of our lives now, especially if you don’t use UPI (universal payments interface) to make payments. Customers of State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI and HDFC may not be able to complete their online transactions from April 1 as they will not receive OTPs.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in a notification recently revealed the names of 40 companies that have not complied with its new SMS regulations. The companies include the likes of Flipkart, SBI, HDFC, ICICI, Axis Bank, National Stock Exchange, Reliance Retail and more.

Move aimed at reducing spam and fraudulent messages

The above companies have not complied with the regulations of the Telecom Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, that mandate senders of commercial bulk SMSes to register their unique SMS header ID, content and user consent on a blockchain-based platform developed by telecom operators. The move is aimed at preventing spam and fraudulent messages.

March 31 final deadline for implementation

TRAI had implemented the second phase of the SMS regulations on March 8. However, due to user complaints regarding delayed OTPs, TRAI had suspended SMS scrubbing to avoid customer inconvenience.

After analysing the delayed messages, TRAI in its notification has said that the blame “can only be attributed to lack of due care and diligence by Principal Entities, Telemarketers and Aggregators.”

Further, it has said that sufficient opportunity has been given to companies and the SMS scrubbing service will be implemented from March 31. What this means is that companies that do not comply with the guidelines will not be able to send messages to their customers.

“It has been decided that from 1st April 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing process due to noncompliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected,” said TRAI in its notification.

Banks to remain closed for three days this week

The banks were closed today as it is the last day of the fiscal year. Apart from this, the banks will remain closed on April 1 for closure of accounts, on April 2 on account of Good Friday and April 4 as it is a Sunday.

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