For years, mobile users across India have struggled with the constant stream of promotional messages that arrive at all hours. Many of these messages come from banks or financial service companies, and people often wonder when they ever agreed to receive them. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has now decided to step in and test a new system that could give users more control. The idea is simple. If companies must prove that you actually gave your consent, unwanted promotional alerts will start to disappear.
TRAI has teamed up with the Reserve Bank of India to run a pilot project that focuses on consent management. The aim is to clean up the way banks record and use customer permissions for sending promotional SMS. It will begin with a small group of mobile users who will receive alerts that ask them to review their past consents. Many of these permissions were collected years ago through handwritten forms or outdated digital processes. Since they were never uploaded to any central system, banks continued to treat them as active even though customers themselves might not remember giving them.
As part of the experiment, some users may receive a message from the short code 127000. This message will not ask for personal or financial information. Instead, it will guide the user to a secure platform where they can see all the consents that banks have recorded against their mobile number. The user can choose to allow or change or revoke these permissions with a few clicks. TRAI has made it clear that responding to the message is optional. Even if someone ignores it today, they can still check and update their consents later.
The pilot includes eleven banks and nine telecom operators. This will help TRAI test whether the new digital consent system works smoothly across different platforms. The government expects the pilot to continue until February 2026. If the results are positive, the system will be rolled out across the country.
One major reason behind this new effort is the gap between what the rules require and what actually happens. Under the Telecommunication Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations framed in 2018, businesses are supposed to record customer consents in a Digital Consent Registry. Users also have the right to block or allow promotional messages from specific categories. While the rulebook looks strong on paper, ground reality has been different. Many consents were never uploaded to the registry. Companies continued sending messages based on old paperwork or internal records that customers could not verify.
TRAI’s pilot hopes to change that by putting the user at the center. When a customer can see every consent linked to their number in a single place, there is little room for confusion. It also forces banks to maintain clean and updated records. If a user revokes consent, the system will show it immediately. This will reduce the chances of mistaken communication and help build trust between customers and banks.
The pilot may not solve the larger problem of spam at this stage. Messages from non-banking companies, real estate agents, loan providers, and other entities will still continue because the test is focused only on banks. But it is a crucial step in the right direction. Consent is the foundation of responsible communication. If the system proves that this model works for banks, it can later be expanded to other sectors.
For millions of mobile users who feel trapped under a flood of promotional messages, this project brings a sense of hope. It signals that regulators are listening. As India moves deeper into digital services, customers deserve clear choices and control over who can reach them. TRAI’s experiment may finally offer that power.
If the pilot succeeds, the day may not be far when promotional messages land only when you truly want them.
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