Part of our guide: AI Calling for Real Estate in India: Enquiry to Site Visit Playbook
Key takeaways
- RBI limits recovery calls and visits to 8 AM–7 PM; a borrower's request to avoid a particular time must be honoured (revised directions, effective 1 January 2027).
- From 1 January 2027, lenders must record recovery calls, tell borrowers they are recorded, and keep records for six months.
- The lender stays responsible for every call, whether a person, an agency or an AI agent makes it.
- AI suits reminders and confirmations; disputes, hardship, settlement and distressed borrowers need a trained person.
- Short, polite turns with one number per turn work better than long scripted monologues.
AI collection calls can take the most repetitive part of collections off your team: the pre-due EMI reminder, the "your payment bounced" nudge and the promise-to-pay confirmation. But a collection call is also the call most likely to land a lender in trouble. Tone, timing and what gets said are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, and an AI agent has to follow those rules exactly as a person would.
What do the RBI recovery agent guidelines say about calls?
RBI allows lenders and their agents to contact borrowers only between 8 AM and 7 PM, bans abusive language, threats, anonymous calls and excessive calling, and holds the lender responsible for anyone calling on its behalf. Revised directions issued in August 2026 add mandatory call recording and take effect on 1 January 2027.
The rules that apply today
RBI's August 2022 circular on responsibilities of regulated entities employing recovery agents prohibits "calling the borrower before 8:00 a.m. and after 7:00 p.m. for recovery of overdue loans", along with intimidation, threatening or anonymous calls, persistent calling and false or misleading representations. It also says the ultimate responsibility for outsourced activities stays with the lender. Those instructions now sit inside RBI's Responsible Business Conduct Directions, 2025, for each type of lender.
What changes on 1 January 2027
On 6 August 2026, RBI issued amendment directions on conduct in recovery of loans for commercial banks, small finance banks, co-operative banks, NBFCs, HFCs and others, effective 1 January 2027. The NBFC version (the commercial bank version reads the same on these points) says:
| Rule in the 2026 directions | What it means for an AI calling setup |
|---|---|
| Contact only between 08:00 and 19:00 hours; outside that only on the borrower's express request | Hard calling window in the dialer, not just a note in the script |
| Honour a borrower's request to avoid a particular time | Capture "don't call me in the morning" and schedule around it |
| Discuss dues only with the borrower or guarantor | Confirm identity before mentioning any amount |
| Avoid bereavement, medical emergencies, calamities, marriage functions | Agent stops, apologises and flags the account for a person |
| Record calls to and from the borrower; keep for six months; tell the borrower | Recording disclosure in the opening line; export and store recordings |
| Harsh practices include minatory language, excessive calling and false statements about consequences | Script reviewed for tone; retry limits per day and per week |
This is general information, not legal advice. Read the directions that apply to your entity and check with your compliance team.
Can AI collection calls stay compliant in India?
Yes, if the rules are built into the system rather than left to the script. Calling-hour windows, retry limits, identity checks, recording disclosure and escalation to a person all need to be configured settings. The lender remains accountable, so it should approve the script, the call limits and the escalation rules before launch.
Identity first, amount second
The 2026 directions say dues may be discussed only with the borrower or guarantor. A spouse or colleague who picks up should hear nothing about a loan: the agent asks for a good time to call back and ends politely. The amount comes up only after the person confirms they are the borrower, for example with the last four digits of the loan account.
Recording and disclosure
From January 2027, recording becomes a requirement, not a nice-to-have. Our platform records and transcribes calls and writes a summary of each, so the record exists. What the lender must add is the disclosure ("This call is recorded for quality and records") and a process to store recordings for at least six months. Our call recording checklist under the DPDP Act covers the data-protection side.
Timing is a setting, not a promise
We set calling-hour windows per campaign. For loan collection calling hours, that window should sit inside 8 AM–7 PM, and we recommend a buffer (say 9 AM–6:30 PM) so a retry never drifts past the limit. When a borrower says "call me after 5", the agent books the call-back at that time and writes it to the sheet.
Track calls per borrower per day and per week from day one. "Excessively calling" is listed as a harsh practice, and the easiest defence is a written retry policy (for example, no more than two attempts a day) that the dialer enforces automatically.
Which EMI reminder calls suit AI, and which need a person?
AI agents handle high-volume, predictable conversations well: pre-due reminders, due-date nudges, bounce notifications and promise-to-pay confirmations. Anything involving judgement, emotion or negotiation (disputes, hardship, settlement, a bereavement) should go to a trained person. The agent's job in those cases is to listen, stay polite and flag the account.
| Call type | Good fit for AI? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-due EMI reminder (3–5 days before) | Yes | Short, friendly, mostly informational |
| Due-date or auto-debit failure nudge | Yes | Clear fact, clear next step (payment link on WhatsApp) |
| Promise-to-pay confirmation | Yes | Confirms a date the borrower already gave |
| Early overdue, first contact | Usually | Keep it soft; escalate if the borrower raises a problem |
| Dispute about amount or charges | No | Needs account review and a human answer |
| Job loss, illness, hardship | No | Needs empathy and restructuring options |
| Settlement or restructuring talk | No | Commercial decision, needs authority |
| Bereavement or emergency mentioned | No | RBI says avoid such occasions; stop and flag |
Our live deployments so far are mostly in real estate, health and wellness, and B2B. What carries over to lending is the call behaviour we tuned on real calls. See our pages on AI calling for banking collections and AI calling for NBFCs and lenders for how we scope these projects.
How do you set up polite AI collection calls, step by step?
Start with your existing reminder script and policy, convert it into short conversational turns, configure hours and retry limits, test on internal numbers, then launch on a small segment with a person listening in. Expand only once recordings show the tone, identity check and escalations working.
- Write the policy first. Calling window, maximum attempts per day and week, who can be called (borrower and guarantor only), and the list of situations that trigger a human call-back.
- Split the script into turns. One or two sentences per turn, one number per turn. "Your EMI of ₹8,450 is due on the 5th" is one turn; the payment options are the next.
- Lock the facts per product. Two-wheeler and personal loan agents should not share a knowledge base. We learned this in real estate, where an early agent loaded several projects and mixed up their prices.
- Set the default language correctly. The opening line must be in the borrower's likely language. A wrong default once made one of our agents go silent at the start of the call until the setting was fixed.
- Configure the guardrails. Calling-hour window, DND checks, India-only numbers, retry limits, and detection of silent or blank calls.
- Connect the outcomes. Write results (reached, promised date, call-back time, escalation flag) back to your Google Sheet or CRM, and send the payment link on WhatsApp through your own provider.
- Test, then listen live. Run the agent on your own team's phones, then launch on a few hundred accounts while a supervisor uses the live monitor to listen, whisper or take over.
What does a polite EMI reminder call sound like?
A good reminder is short, names the person respectfully, confirms identity before mentioning money, gives one fact per turn, offers an easy next step and ends with a goodbye. It never threatens consequences, never guesses gender, and never talks over the borrower.
Here is a hypothetical example of a pre-due reminder, translated from Hinglish:
- Agent: Namaste, am I speaking with Sunita Sharma ji?
- Borrower: Haan, bol rahi hoon.
- Agent: Thank you, Sunita ji. I'm calling from [Lender]'s customer care. This call is recorded. Could you confirm the last four digits of your loan account?
- Borrower: 4417.
- Agent: Thank you. Your EMI of ₹6,200 is due on 5 November.
- Borrower: Okay, it will be paid.
- Agent: Thank you, ji. Shall I send the payment link on WhatsApp?
- Borrower: Haan, bhej dijiye.
- Agent: Done. Have a good day, Sunita ji. Namaste.
The pattern comes from feedback a sales manager gave us while testing our calls. Long monologues felt rushed, even at a normal voice speed. When people said "hello?" mid-sentence, a naive agent restarted its whole line. Calling a woman "Sir" repeatedly was a real failure. We fixed these with shorter turns, the person's name with "ji" or "avare", and a platform rule that holds the hang-up until the goodbye has finished playing. In collections, where borrowers may already be anxious, these details matter even more.
Common mistakes in loan collection calling
The most common mistakes are calling outside permitted hours because of retries, discussing dues with whoever answers, using pressure language copied from old agency scripts, ignoring a borrower's preferred time, and letting the AI agent handle disputes it cannot resolve.
- Retries that drift past 7 PM. A 6:45 PM attempt that retries at 7:10 PM breaks the rule.
- Old agency scripts. Lines like "legal action will be taken" can count as a false or misleading representation about consequences. Rewrite with your compliance team.
- No identity check. Mentioning a loan to a family member is exactly what the directions prohibit.
- Ignoring "call me later". A time the borrower names must be captured and honoured.
- Same message in two languages. An agent that repeats each line in Hindi and English sounds broken. Switch only when the borrower speaks a full sentence in another language.
- No escalation path. If the borrower mentions a hospital stay or a death in the family, the agent should stop, apologise and flag the account, not continue the reminder.
For the wider legal picture, including telecom rules on business calls, read our guide on whether AI calling is legal in India.
What do AI collection calls cost?
Reminder and confirmation calls are short, so they are among the cheapest calls to automate. On our plans, a call under a minute costs roughly ₹3–8 and a two-minute conversation about ₹12–16, plus 18% GST. Billing is in 30-second pulses and unanswered calls are not billed.
As a hypothetical example: say an NBFC sends 2,000 pre-due reminders a month and most connected calls finish within a minute. At ₹3–8 per connected call, the cost stays at a few rupees per account, with the plan minimum and one-time setup fee on top (see our pricing page). Connect rates depend on list quality and timing. Across our mixed campaigns (mostly real estate) from May to October 2026, about 61% of outbound calls lasted 15 seconds or more, and 12–3 PM did better than 10–11 AM. That is a duration proxy, not a verified pickup rate, and lending lists may behave differently.
For more playbooks across industries, see our AI calling industry playbook.
AI collection calls work best when they are boring in the right way: on time, inside the rules, polite, short, recorded and quick to hand over to a person when the conversation needs judgement. If you want to hear one in your own borrowers' language, book a 20-minute demo and we'll call your phone with an agent set up for your business.
Frequently asked questions
Are AI collection calls allowed under RBI rules?
RBI's recovery directions do not ban technology on calls. They set conduct rules that apply to whoever calls on the lender's behalf: contact only between 8 AM and 7 PM, no abusive or threatening language, no excessive calling, record calls and keep them for six months. The lender stays responsible, so an AI agent must be configured to follow the same rules as a human caller.
What are the permitted loan collection calling hours in India?
RBI allows recovery calls and visits only between 08:00 and 19:00 hours. From 1 January 2027, the revised directions also say calls outside this window are allowed only if the borrower has expressly asked for them, and a borrower's request to avoid a particular time must be honoured in normal circumstances. Set these limits in the calling system itself.
Do collection calls have to be recorded?
Under RBI's August 2026 amendment directions, effective 1 January 2027, lenders must record recovery calls made to borrowers and calls borrowers make to the number the lender gave them. Records are kept for six months, or longer if a case is sub judice, and borrowers should be told the call is being recorded.
Which collection calls should still be handled by a person?
Disputes about the amount, hardship or job loss, requests to restructure or settle, bereavement or medical emergencies, and any borrower who is upset or asks for a person. An AI agent can handle reminders, payment-link nudges and promise-to-pay confirmations, then flag these cases for a trained staff member to call back.
How much does an AI EMI reminder call cost?
On DigitalCallers plans, billing is in 30-second pulses and unanswered calls are not billed. A short reminder or confirmation call under a minute costs roughly ₹3–8, while a two-minute conversation costs about ₹12–16, plus 18% GST. Plans have a one-time setup fee and a monthly minimum.
We build and run AI calling agents for Indian businesses from Gurugram, in Hindi, English and regional languages. Our articles draw on calls we have run ourselves and link to primary sources such as TRAI, DoT and MeitY for anything regulatory. Spotted something out of date? Write to support@digitalcallers.com.
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