Two things about Indian telecom have made life difficult for banks’ collections departments.
The first is that fifty years of state telecom ensured that it was almost impossible for anybody to get a landline.
The second is that competition in mobile phones is so fierce that people can switch their mobile phones practically instantly. Unlike the USA, there are no long-term contracts, no numbers mated to handsets, or so forth. And on the consumer behaviour side, people aren’t all that worried about losing the number which everyone has- which is also influenced by competition to some degree- SMSing all your contacts your new number isn’t grossly expensive.
Which means that all too often, a collections officer will be trying to track down someone who’s been delinquent on his credit card or personal loan or mortgage payments, only to find that he has no landline, and that the mobile phone number he’s provided no longer works.
There are two aspects to this- the people who genuinely don’t intend to pay and change their numbers to make life difficult for the bank. And people who intend to or can be persuaded to pay and have changed their numbers anyway. If number portability does get implemented eventually, the second group will be easier to trace down. Banks are probably going to love number portability far more than consumers.
