Trai has fixed a time limit of 10 seconds for telecom service providers to deliver banking transaction-related messages to customers.

"Every Access Provider, acting as bearer, shall facilitate the banks to use SMS, USSD and IVR to provide banking services to its customers and deliver the message generated by the bank or the customer within the time frame specified...," said Mobile Banking (Quality Of Service) Regulations, 2012 issued by Trai on Monday.

The regulation asks Telecom Service Providers (TSP) to deliver the message generated by the bank or the customer within specified time frame under new regulation which is less than equal to 10 seconds for SMS, IVR, WAP, STK (a technology built in SIM card) and 2 seconds for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).

"These time frames are for the first delivery attempt," the regulations said. The regulations have been issued following recommendation of Inter-Ministerial Group on delivery of financial services through mobile phone that asked Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to draw up guidelines to ensure high availability of associated communication services.

Under the new regulations, TSP have been asked to facilitate banks with SMS, USSD and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) service for providing banking services to its customers.

USSD messages are generally used by companies to inform user when they finish calls.

"Being a financial transaction the consumer would like to receive confirmation of the outcome of the transaction at the earliest," Trai said.