The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced on Tuesday that a pilot project will soon enable a small group of mobile users to manage their consent for promotional messages from banks more effectively. This initiative, undertaken in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), aims to address long-standing issues with consent management under India’s current digital communications framework.

As part of the pilot, select customers whose old consents have been uploaded to the system may receive an SMS from the short code 127000, sent by their telecom operator. Each SMS will contain a standard advisory and a secure link to the operator’s consent management page, where users can view all consents recorded by their banks against their mobile numbers. From there, users can retain, modify, or revoke consents according to their preference.

TRAI emphasised that no personal or financial information will be requested at any stage and advised users to interact only with messages from the official 127000 short code. Participation in the pilot is optional, and users can choose to act—or not—on the SMS.

The pilot includes nine telecom operators and 11 banks, which are uploading both historical and new consents to the shared digital platform. The banks participating are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, and Punjab & Sind Bank. The exercise will also test whether the new digital consent system is ready for nationwide implementation. The government expects the pilot to conclude by February 2026.

Currently, under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, users can block promotional calls and messages by category while allowing promotions from selected businesses. The regulations also include a Digital Consent Registry for businesses to record user consent. However, the system has faced challenges due to the fragmented nature of consent collection, including paper forms and separate digital systems at bank branches that were never uploaded to the registry. As a result, the framework has been only partially effective, and customers lacked a simple way to view or cancel old consents.

TRAI clarified that this pilot is not designed to address spam messages from entities outside the banking sector, such as real estate developers, pathology labs, or non-banking financial companies. Its focus is specifically on promotional messages sent by banks with which users have a relationship.

By consolidating old and new consents into a single digital platform, the pilot seeks to enhance transparency, empower customers, and modernize consent management practices. TRAI sees the exercise as a crucial step in ensuring that India’s consent ecosystem is standardized, user-friendly, and ready for full-scale implementation across the country.

The regulator also noted that customers who do not receive messages during the pilot should not be concerned, as the initiative is currently limited to selected participants for testing purposes. Feedback from the pilot will inform broader rollout strategies and may help address longstanding user complaints regarding unsolicited promotional communications.

This initiative represents a key effort to strengthen consumer rights in digital communications, giving users greater control over the information they receive on their mobile devices, and potentially serving as a model for consent management in other sectors as India continues to digitize its financial and communication services.