Telecom Lead India: India’s telecom regulator TRAI has
issued new regulations for mobile banking to ensure faster and reliable
communication for enabling banking through cellular phones in the country.

 

As per the new guidelines, the access service providers
need to facilitate the banks to use SMS, USSD and IVR to provide banking
services to its customers. The access service providers can also optionally
facilitate the bank to use WAP or STK.

 

The response time for delivery of message for mobile
banking services generated by the customer or the bank will be within the
prescribed time frame of <= 10 seconds for SMS, IVR, WAP and STK and <= 2
seconds for USSD.

 

Every Access provider shall ensure that for availing the
banking services

such as cash deposit, cash withdrawal, money transfer and
balance enquiry,

the customer is able to complete the transaction in not more
than two stage

transmission of message in the case of SMS or not more
than two stage entry

of options in the case of USSD and IVR.

 

TRAI said the regulations also mandate that if SMS sent
by the bank is not delivered to the customer due to network or handset related
problems, and USSD communication to the customer confirming the completion of
the transaction should be sent.

 

For mobile banking, the service providers need to meet
the quality of service standards laid by TRAI for Cellular Mobile Telephone
Services and certain customer centric parameters are laid down in the new
regulations.

 

The end-to-end encryption, integrity, authentication and
non-repudiation of m-banking communication in the network of the Access
Provider shall be in accordance with the standards certified by International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) or European Telecommunications Standards
Institute (ETSI) or Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) or International
standardization bodies such as Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) or
Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) or Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF) or American National Standards Institute (ANSI) or
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) or Interim Standard (IS) or any
other international standard as may be approved by the Central Government.

 

Every access provider need to maintain record of mobile
banking messages for six months for audit purposes.

 

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