The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued (pdf) new regulations to prescribe a ceiling tariff on USSD based mobile banking services and establish a framework to enable bank agents interface with access service providers to provide mobile banking services through SMS, USSD and IVR channels. As per the new regulations, TRAI has set a ceiling tariff of Rs 1.50 for each outgoing USSD-based mobile banking session and asked telecom service providers to collect the charges from their subscribers for providing this service, as they do with SMS-based and app-based mobile banking services. This tariff will be applicable from January 1, 2014. TRAI had earlier proposed this ceiling tariff in a consultation paper on USSD mobile banking service in September 2013. It had also then asked suggestions on whether these service providers should collect charges from the subscriber (B2C pricing model) or from banks (B2B pricing model). Besides this, the regulator has also increased the maximum number of stages for completing a mobile banking transaction to five stages of message transmission, in case of SMS and five stages of options in case of USSD and IVR. Previously, the limit was set at two stages, however service provider associations had pointed out that two stages might not be possible for all transactions and it will be come increasingly difficult as more facilities are added in the future. This was also corroborated by banks and their agents due to which TRAI increased the maximum of stages. Bank Agent Framework: In addition the ceiling tariff, TRAI has also mandated that every access provider…
