Call borrowers and customers only in daytime hours, and if you're an RBI-regulated lender or its agent, follow RBI's contact-hour instructions: widely reported as no recovery calls before 8 am or after 7 pm. Check the current text, because rules change. Keep calls polite, to the customer only, and not too frequent. Edesy Collect campaigns default to 09:00 to 20:00 IST, never go outside 09:00 to 21:00, and can be narrowed (for example, to end at 19:00).
Set a compliant calling window: Open Edesy Collect and set calling hours on your reminder campaign through the API.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Read the current rules that apply to you and ask your compliance team or a lawyer.
Who sets the rules
| Body | What it covers | What it means for reminder calls |
|---|---|---|
| RBI | Banks, NBFCs and other entities it regulates, and recovery agents acting for them | Fair practices in recovery, including contact hours and conduct |
| TRAI | Commercial communication over telecom networks | Unsolicited calls, DND preferences, caller identification |
| Your own policy | Whatever your board, lender partner or client contract requires | Often stricter than the regulators |
If you're a collection agency or a software provider working for a lender, the lender's obligations usually flow down to you through the contract. Ask for their policy in writing.
RBI: contact hours and conduct
RBI has for years issued fair-practice guidance for lenders and their recovery agents. The points most people know are:
- Contact hours. RBI's instructions on recovery agents, as widely reported, say borrowers should not be called before 8:00 am or after 7:00 pm for recovery of overdue loans.
- No harassment or intimidation. No threats, abusive language or repeated calls designed to pressure.
- Privacy. Don't discuss the debt with family, friends, colleagues or anyone other than the borrower.
- Identify yourself. Say who you are and on whose behalf you're calling.
- Be clear and accurate. State the amount and due date correctly; don't threaten actions you can't take.
These are summaries. Read the current RBI master directions and circulars that apply to your type of entity, as they are updated from time to time.
TRAI: keep it transactional
TRAI's rules on commercial communication govern unsolicited calls and do-not-disturb preferences. A reminder about an existing loan, bill or subscription is generally treated differently from a sales call, but:
- keep the call about the account, with no offers or cross-selling,
- call only customers with an existing relationship,
- honour requests not to be called,
- check current TRAI rules for your call category and number type.
For the broader picture see TRAI regulations for AI calling and RBI guidelines for AI collections.
A practical calling policy
| Item | Suggested policy |
|---|---|
| Calling window for regulated lending | 09:00 to 19:00, inside RBI's widely reported 8 am to 7 pm range |
| Calling window for other reminders | 09:00 to 21:00 at most; narrower is kinder |
| Sundays and public holidays | Consider not calling, or only on the due date |
| Attempts per day | 1 before the due date; up to 2 or 3 on and after it |
| Gap between attempts | At least 60 minutes |
| Who you speak to | The customer only |
| Message | Who is calling, when payment is due, how to pay, "ignore if paid" |
| Opt-out | Honour requests not to be called; record them |
| Disputes | Stop automated calls and pass to a person |
Write your policy down and apply it to every account the same way.
How Edesy Collect enforces this
Collect builds the limits into each reminder campaign, server-side, so a misconfigured campaign or API call can't go past them:
| Control | Edesy Collect |
|---|---|
| Calling window | Default 09:00 to 20:00 IST; set per campaign through the API, never outside 09:00 to 21:00 |
| Attempts per debtor per day | Capped at 3 |
| Minimum gap between attempts | 60 minutes |
| Stop rules | Stop on payment; mark a contact paid, promised or stopped through the API |
| Payment webhook | Your server calls POST /v1/collect/webhooks/payment when a payment lands (forward Razorpay events from your own handler) |
| DNC suppression | Numbers on your do-not-call list are not dialled |
For RBI-regulated lending, set the window to end at 19:00 or earlier; the 20:00 default is too late for that case. The cap of 3 is a ceiling, not a target: start with fewer. See payment reminder call schedule by due date for a stage-by-stage plan.
Other Edesy outbound products have similar guardrails: the outbound IVR API enforces 09:00 to 21:00 IST and DNC, and broadcast campaigns have dialing hours and DNC suppression.
Time zones and edge cases
- Customers in other time zones. If you call customers abroad, the window should follow their local time, not IST.
- Night-shift workers. Some customers ask to be called at a specific time. Record the request; it doesn't override your regulator's rules.
- Callbacks the customer asks for. A callback the customer requested is a different situation from an unsolicited reminder, but keep it within your policy's hours.
- Retries after carrier failures. A failed call is still an attempt in the customer's eyes if their phone rang. Don't let retries pile up.
Conduct on the call itself
Hours are only part of it. A reminder call should:
- Say who is calling and why in the first sentence.
- Give the due date and how to pay.
- Offer a way to talk to a person.
- Say "if you have already paid, please ignore this call".
- Contain no threats, no shaming and no mention of telling anyone else.
If you use AI voice agents for collections, the same rules apply. See AI voice agents for collection agencies.
Records to keep
| Record | Why |
|---|---|
| Call time and outcome per attempt | Shows calls stayed within hours and limits |
| Message text per campaign | Shows what customers heard |
| Opt-out and dispute requests | Shows you honoured them |
| Paid, promised and stopped status changes | Shows calls stopped when they should |
Collect keeps per-contact results and status for each campaign; keep your own copy in your system of record as well.
Pricing
Edesy Collect plans (plus 18% GST): Starter Rs 1,499 a month with about 1,000 calls then Rs 0.90 per connected call; Growth Rs 3,499 with about 4,000 then Rs 0.75; Scale Rs 10,499 with about 16,000 then Rs 0.60. One number included, extra caller IDs about Rs 500 a month, unanswered calls free, KYC required. See payment reminder call pricing and the Collect docs.
More on the product: payment reminder calls.