The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has moved its open property project to the next phase, with real-world cases to be tested.
After completing roadmaps on developing open finance, digital ID, and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) access to finance, the government-backed CFIT moved its focus on open property a year ago.
Through a roadmap, CFIT and the open property coalition are attempting to transform the home buying and selling sector. The government wants to transform the archaic home buying and selling process, which costs the economy nearly £1bn a year. CFIT is tasked with bringing together the public and private sector organisations required to make this happen successfully.
The open property coalition brings together expertise from across the entire homebuying chain, including mortgage lenders, property technology providers, conveyancers, estate agents, government departments and regulators.
Earlier this year, the coalition began identifying a consensus on what it can do and map it. Part of this involved identifying the data sets that were being used by the market and data clusters, which are reusable collections of data which could be used for various purposes.
Now it will move to testing out approaches that could be adopted by the sector. Coalition participants include the Conveyancing Information Executive, Connells Group, Council of Property Search Organisations, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, and NatWest.
The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology; the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; HM Land Registry; and the Digital Property Market Steering group are closely watching developments,
“Over the coming months, coalition members will work together to develop and test real-world use cases, explore how existing standards and systems can work together, and identify the practical requirements for wider adoption across a more trusted and interoperable property ecosystem,” said CFIT. “The evidence generated will help to inform the wider work of government, the Digital Property Market Steering Group and industry.”
Read more: CFIT is ‘shaking up business models’ with UK government backing.
Anna Wallace, CEO of CFIT, said the latest phase is a sign that stakeholders are uniting: “The breadth of industry support for the next phase of CFIT’s Open Property Coalition is a significant step forward. This announcement reflects growing alignment between industry, government and the Digital Property Market Steering Group on what needs to change, and we now have a real opportunity to turn our ambition to create a digital and more efficient homebuying process into reality.”
Brad Fordham, head of mortgage distribution and underwriting at NatWest bank, said: “Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions our customers make, but securing a mortgage is only one part of a much wider and often complex journey.”
He highlighted that tech plays a key role in reducing the complexity: “Lenders rely on trusted information from across the property ecosystem, so there is a significant opportunity to use smart data and digital technology to make that information easier to verify and share securely.”
The coalition approach ensures that ideas can be tested across the entire homebuying sector, added Fordham: “Open property brings together the organisations needed to explore how that can work across the whole transaction, rather than improving individual stages in isolation. By testing these approaches in practice, we can help build the evidence and confidence needed to create a simpler, more transparent homebuying experience for customers.”
Travis Scholes, commercial director at conveyancing services firm LMS, said: “The foundations for a more connected homebuying process are already being established across the market. The opportunity now is to connect the organisations, expertise and infrastructure needed to drive adoption at scale.”
