Distributed Ledger Technology has literally revolutionized the system of messaging. It has broken down the barriers to entry and has helped entities to connect with customers easily.

DLT has upgraded the system with multiple features to help businesses transact securely and reliably.

• Decentralisation and distribution –  DLT is all about a “decentralized” network against the conventional centralized one which eliminates the need for a central authority to keep a check against manipulation. It makes the copies stored across the network to be immune to a cyber-crime.

• Fraud management – With the implementation of DLT, it has become much easier to prevent fraud related to multiple funding of the same receivables through unrelated providers. This has resulted in the acceleration of the business process, easy exchange of information, and consistent user experience.

• Transparent and trusted – DLT, being a decentralized system needs the parties to become transparent and open because there is no central authority to govern the coordination. Not only does DLT assure trust and transparency, but it also reduces transaction costs and increases efficiency.

• Data privacy and security – The technology gives the power of storing personal data into the hands of regular users to be able to verify the transactions themselves, which makes it trustworthy and secure for businesses.

• Empowering the end-users – DLT puts the end-users in control of their own data and improves user’s trust in carrying out transactions. It gives human-to-human trust that we need in society.

• 0 identity crisis – One of the main reasons for TRAI to implement DLT was to stop the unsolicited communication by fake identities. With DLT in action, there is no scope for spamming by frauds and unregistered entities.

• Spam reduction – The technology aims to curb Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) and enables spam calls and messages. After registering on the DLT portal, telemarketers can only use designated number series and SMS services to connect with customers. Before any SMS is sent to the customers, the details of the messages are sent to the portal for verification.

• Traceable – When you register your entity on a DLT platform, you enter information that can be used in the future by the designated authority. DLT doesn’t allow any other entities that are not registered on the platform to connect or send messages to the customers which makes it easy for the authority to trace the entity that has information entered on the platform.

Following all the TRAI directives, Telecom operators have started registering for necessary templates in DLT platforms.

Please follow the following steps to register for the SMS template

STEP-1: Log into your dashboard with your registered username and password to receive the OTP.

STEP-2: On the left-hand side, click on “template”. This will direct you to the template page. Following this, you can see a “add new template” option on your right side of the screen.

Step-3: A format to register for the template will appear as shown below. Fill in all the required details.

Template Name- Fill it for your own use to remember the template information.

Communication type- Select “SMS”

Content-Type- There are four types of content available- Transactional, promotional, service implicit, and service explicit. Choose the type of content you want to register your template for.

Content category- Select the type of industry you’re dealing in.

Template type– Select “text”

STEP-4: Select the sender ID from which the SMS content has to be sent.

STEP-5: Copy/paste or type the message both for static and dynamic content with variable fields. After typing, click on add variable at the required point in the SMS.

STEP-6: Once the template is submitted, you’ll be redirected to the page having the summary as well as the status of your template.

STEP-7: Once the template is approved and the status is changed to active, you can click on the status button to get your template ID.

TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) released a regulation in 2018 to implement the registration of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) in order to enhance control over fraudulent activities and to prevent customers from Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC). You can read all about DLT and about its advantages here.

Now, as part of their Phase-3 implementation, TRAI introduced another regulation. Before this, any organization wanting to connect with customers through SMS has to

–        Get their KYC done

–        Get their Sender ID approved and linked to the registered companies.

In addition to this, from March 2021, you also have to get your SMS content template registered that you want to send to your customer. The term is known as “Consent Template Registration” which is defined as a distributed ledger for registration of consent template (DL-TCS) that keeps a record of unique consent template identity along with the content of template and details of the sender who got it registered, in a secured manner.

There are 4 different types of content types depending on, which way you want to communicate with your customers.

Transactional SMS- Any message which contains OTP (mainly banking transactions) and requires to complete transaction initiated by the customer.

Promotional SMS- Message sent to promote any goods or services is said to be promotional in nature. These messages are sent to customers based on their preferences.

Service Explicit- Promotional offer messages sent to customers after receiving their consent will come under this category.

Service Implicit- Any message that is sent based on a customer’s action or his existing relationship with the entity, that is not promotional is considered as service implicit.

You can get any telemarketer to register it for you or you can register it yourself.

Before going ahead to register your template, take notes of these things.

–        While creating the content of the template, it is mandatory to mention the brand name in the content field.

–        The brand name can be in any form- Business name, brand name, trademark.

–        To create a template in the regional language, use the “copy/paste message” option

–        Never manually modify the variable once entered in the message box, it will not be considered a variable anymore.

Apart from all these, there will still be a question on how to register your SMS template. Refer to these steps to get your SMS template successfully registered.