In a major step towards tackling spam calls and messages, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has launched a Pilot Project for Digital Consent Management in partnership with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and select banks.
TRAI observed that many complaints about spam are linked to businesses that claim to have customer consent. However, these consents are often collected offline, making them difficult to verify. In some cases, customer mobile numbers are even used without proper permission, leading to misuse and rising concerns about fraud, especially in banking.
To solve this problem, TRAI has developed a new digital system that allows companies to collect and store customer consent securely and transparently. The idea is simple: only those businesses that have verified digital consent from consumers will be allowed to send commercial messages—even if the user is on the Do Not Disturb (DND) list.
“To address the issue, the regulations provide for acquiring consent digitally by the entities and registering them in a secure and interoperable digital consent registry maintained by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for easy verification of consents while commercial communication is made to the consumers. However, for successful operation of this consent registration framework, onboarding of entities sending commercial communications is a necessary requirement,” Ministry of communications said in a release.
Accordingly, to begin the national roll-out, TRAI has launched a Pilot Project in coordination with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) involving select banks and has issued a Direction on 13th June, 2025, to all the Telecom Service Providers, mandating them to pilot this framework in collaboration with banks. Given the sensitivity of banking transactions and cases of financial frauds through spam calls, the banking sector has been prioritized for the first phase of implementation.
This Pilot, running under a Regulatory Sandbox framework, will validate the operational, technical, and regulatory aspects of the enhanced Consent Registration Function (CRF) and lay the foundation for sector-wise scaling of the digital consent ecosystem.
By launching this pilot, TRAI is laying the foundation for a secure, transparent, and consumer-friendly communication system that can expand across sectors in the future. The move is expected to significantly improve consumer trust while giving businesses a clear, compliant way to engage with their customers.