FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd and the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment, an RBI-recognised self-regulatory organisation in the fintech sector, have written to the telcom regulator to relax proposed rules around taking consent from mobile users for receiving transactional messages. 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, in a consultation paper issued in September, has suggested that users will have the option to opt out of receiving transactional messages. 

HUL has however told the TRAI that the proposed norms will impact genuine transactional messages.

“While this (the new rules) will provide consumers the choice to not receive such messages/ calls including OTPs, this could also backfire since such transactional messages/calls are important for the secured access of consumer accounts and for undertaking banking transactions,” HUL said. 

The FMCG company said that if a customer inadvertently opts out of receiving such important transactional messages/calls (like OTPs), it could result in service deficiency as they will be unable to access their accounts online.

“For the abovementioned case where a consumer has inadvertently opted-out of receiving important transactional messages/calls like OTPs and now wants to receive such messages/calls in order to access accounts/making online transactions, such consumer will need to wait for 90 days for resumption of services leading to unnecessary service interruption. It is advisable to limit this to a more reasonable period in order to ensure that consumers are not at a loss,” HUL said. 

The fintech association, FACE, has also expressed similar views.

“The opt-out option should be limited strictly to marketing or promotional messages. Service-related communications, essential for delivering critical updates and notifications, should be exempt from this opt-out requirement,” Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment said in its submission to the Trai.

“Restricting optout options to marketing messages ensures that customers remain informed while maintaining control over promotional content,” it added. 

Under the current framework, transactional messages/ calls include those relating to OTP, etc. and the recipients of these messages/calls are not permitted to opt out given the importance of these messages/ calls.

For banks, OTPs are being sent for various security purposes including while making various net-banking transactions. Similarly, various companies (including ecommerce companies) allow creation of consumer accounts on their website.

Authentication of consumer is often done by sending the consumer OTPs on their mobiles for logging into their accounts. Under the existing rules, companies are not required to take explicit consent from the recipient for such messages.

However, the TRAI has found that many companies are using the transactional messages route to send promotional and marketing communications as well.

According to the TRAI’s new rules, a mandatory opt-out mechanism will have to be presented to the recipient after each transactional call through an SMS. If a customer has opted-out to receive commercial communications from a sender, consent seeking request for the same purpose can be made by the same sender to that customer only after ninety days from the date of opt-out. 

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