Do Not Call – UCC – RBI instructions
We are all pestered by the UCC - Unsolicited Commercial Communications. How often you have been told by a sweet voice that you have been selected exclusively for a special loan or card or whatever from some bank!
Reserve Bank of India in a communiqué, yesterday stated, It is an emerging practice in India to engage agents/outsource business operations for the purpose of soliciting or promoting any commercial transactions using telecommunication mode. There is a need to protect the right to privacy of the members of public and to curb the complaints relating to unsolicited commercial communications being received by customers/non-customers, as part of best business practices.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has framed the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) Regulations for curbing UCC. The regulation envisages that all the telecom service providers would set up a mechanism to receive requests from subscribers who do not want to receive UCC and for this purpose will maintain and operate a Private Do Not Call List. The Private Do Not Call List will include telephone numbers and other details of all such subscribers. The telephone numbers and area code from this Private Do Not Call List will be updated online by the operators to a National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC) which will be maintained by National Informatics Centre (NIC) and thus the NDNC will have the telephone numbers of all the subscribers all over India who have opted not to receive any UCC. Telemarketers will have to register in the NDNC Registry. The telemarketers would submit online the calling list to the NDNC Registry where the list will be modified/scrubbed by excluding the numbers listed in the registry and the modified/scrubbed list will be online transferred back to the telemarketers for making calls.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has issued relevant guidelines for telemarketers along with the registration procedure. These guidelines have made it mandatory for telemarketers to register themselves with DoT or any other agency authorized by DoT and also specified that the telemarketers shall comply with the Guidelines and Orders/Directions issued by DoT and Orders/Directions/Regulations issued by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Unsolicited Commercial Communications(UCC). TRAI have also clarified that banks/their Call Centres, while registering themselves as Telemarketers, will be required to give the details of the telephone numbers used for telemarketing. The instructions would be equally applicable to NBFCs
RBI has therefore advised NBFCs:
(i) not to engage Telemarketers (DSAs/DMAs) who do not have any valid registration certificate from DoT, Govt of India, as telemarketers; (ii) to furnish the list of Telemarketers (DSAs/DMAs) engaged by them along with the registered telephone numbers being used by them for making telemarketing calls to TRAI; and
(ii) to ensure that all agents presently engaged by them register themselves with DoT as telemarketers .