Here’s Why Customers Of SBI, HDFC, & ICICI Bank May Face Issue In Receiving OTP

If you have an account with HDFC, SBI, or ICICI Bank, you may encounter difficulties receiving OTP in the upcoming days. Those hoping to visit the banks in the coming week, however, should be informed that the banks will be closed for 5 days from March 30 to April 4. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued the names of 40 companies on Friday that failed to comply with the latest SMS rules, including three banks: SBI, HDFC, Kotak and ICICI. The TRAI issued a declaration in which they issued a stern rule, specifying that these companies must comply with the directives by April 1, 2021, or their customers will be unable to get or receive OTP on their registered mobile number or email ID with the bank.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has launched a mechanism to reduce unauthorized and illegitimate SMS by asking companies to lodge SMS in a format with TRAI in order to satisfy customers. The primary objective of this initiative is to deliver the appropriate message to customers to prevent them from being victims of cybercrime. Many companies, on the other hand, are not taking TRAI's order effectively, and their customers may end up bearing the bulk of the consequences in the coming month. According to the latest statement TRAI stated that "It has been informed that principle entities including major banks like State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank Ltd are not transmitting mandatory parameter like content template IDs, PE (principle entity) IDs, etc. even in those cases where content templates have been registered while sending such messages to TSPs (telecom service providers) for delivery."

As a result of the companies' failure to obey its directives, TRAI has taken stern action against them. The authority has warned all of these defaulting firms that if they don't want their customers to face trouble receiving OTP, they must comply with the order by April 1, 2021. As a consequence, from April 1, 2021, any message that fails the 'Scrubbing Process' since it does not satisfy regulatory criteria will be excluded from the regulatory regime. The new SMS system is yet to be adopted by 17 private and public sector banks including Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). Other companies listed as defaulters by Trai include Flipkart, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) Bajaj Finance Ltd and Indiabulls Consumer Finance Ltd, brokerage companies Kotak Securities Ltd and Angel Broking Ltd, and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

All regulatory bodies, including the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority, and state and central government authorities, have been directed by TRAI to ensure that the rules are followed by bodies within their regulation. TRAI also stated that "It appears that few entities are not only indifferent but are not serious enough in complying with the provisions of the regulations, thereby, causing inconvenience to the consumer. In the absence of these necessary parameters, the messages are bound to be rejected by the system during the scrubbing process". The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), that prevent unregistered companies from issuing commercial messages, were implemented in July 2018 to properly deal with the menace of spam. Fraudulent messages to customers are often prohibited for registered businesses. Following significant glitches in online transactions like net banking, Aadhaar-enabled transactions, train ticket bookings, and vaccine registration, TRAI restored the latest SMS scrubbing rules last week.

Bank Holidays From March 30 to April 4

It should be noted that bank services in Patna will be closed on March 30. Following this, banks will be closed on March 31st, which is the last day of the fiscal year. Following these, banks will be closed on April 1 because account closures will be concluded on that day. On April 2, there will also be a holiday due to Good Friday. The banks will be closed on April 4th due to the fact that it is a Sunday.