Telecom regulator TRAI on Wednesday proposed to take away prices on USSD messages for cellular banking and cost companies to advertise digital transactions.
The Unstructured Supplementary Service Information (USSD) messages get displayed on the display screen of cellphones and are usually not saved like SMSes. This expertise is extensively used to show stability deduction in cellphones the place a message pops-up on the gadget display screen after a name or outgoing SMS.
At current, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has capped the value of a USSD session at 50 paise the place every session might be accomplished in eight phases. The suggestion to take away prices has been made by a high-level committee on deepening of digital funds constituted by the Reserve Financial institution of India (RBI) with a view to encouraging digitalisation of funds and enhancing monetary inclusion.
The suggestions made by the committee are supported by the Division of Monetary Providers (DFS). Trai, in an announcement, mentioned following a request from the DFS to the Division of Telecommunications on this regard, the Authority analysed the difficulty from varied elements and is of the view that as a way to shield the pursuits of the USSD customers and promote digital monetary inclusion, rationalisation of USSD prices is required.
“Accordingly, the Authority proposes to revise the framework for USSD primarily based cellular banking and cost companies by prescribing a ‘Nil’ cost per USSD session for cellular banking and cost service, whereas protecting the remaining objects of USSD unchanged,” Trai mentioned. The regulator mentioned the current tariff per USSD session for cellular banking supplied by telecom service suppliers (TSPs) is a number of instances greater than the common tariff for one minute of outgoing voice name, or one outgoing SMS.
“Contemplating the decline in prices for different companies, the rationalization of USSD prices is required to extend the variety of USSD transactions,” Trai mentioned. The regulator has invited views of stakeholders on the draft proposal by December 8.
