The nation’s largest bank has joined the Open Property Data Association in a bid to improve the homebuying process for customers through data sharing after two of it’s competitors signed with the trade association earlier this year.
HSBC UK has joined forces with the Open Property Data Association(OPDA), which was founded last year, hot on the heels of Nationwide who announced it’s membership in July and Lloyds Banking Group who merged with OPDA in March. The move is set to streamline homebuying by allowing access to digital property information across the mortgage market.
Oli O’Donoghue, Head of Mortgages at HSBC UK said: “Joining the OPDA is a significant step for us to help play a part in further improving the home buying process. This move aligns with our commitment to putting our customers first by enhancing their experience of buying a home through greater transparency, while giving customers greater control. Our membership will also allow us to contribute to the development of digital services – which is a key strategic priority for us as a ‘digital first’ bank.
“We are truly excited to collaborate with other industry leaders and hope this will help drive innovation and improve the digital landscape for all home buyers.”
The future of digital services and an upgrade of the notoriously slow UK homebuying process has been forecast as the government identified key areas for improvement in the Digital Information and Smart Data bill published in April of this year. The bill explores the lack of consumer power in the nation’s homebuying market – calling the process ‘complex’ and ‘involving a large number of professionals’.
The government’s roadmap for easier access to data when homebuying recognises the need for data consolidation.
“Data is currently fragmented and can be difficult for both consumers and professionals to access. Relevant data is spread between a number of sources including local authorities, HM Land Registry, utility providers and individual homeowners. Much of the data is stored in a way which makes it difficult to access and therefore interrogate – for instance, local transport information is still often held spatially in PDF format,” the document states.
OPDA say they have called on the Government to “deliver digitised property data at source including HMLR, planning permissions, building safety, and local authority searches as promised in 2018, and to provide clarity to the industry on executing a fully digital home buying market”.
OPDA’s initiative has been dubbed a ‘first of it’s kind’ and the association say they have already delivered open property data standards and models for “trustable and shareable data” with open-source tools. OPDA says that using their data standards for digital property packs have seen time reduced from mortgage offer and purchase accepted to exchange of contracts within 15 days.
Maria Harris, Chair of OPDA, said: “To have HSBC UK join us further reinforces how absolutely vital open data standards are in digitising property transactions and the commitment from industry to make this happen. Over 40% of UK mortgage customers are supported every year by our lending members who have some of the deepest and long-standing relationships with distribution and technology providers. Their collective ability to reduce the industry’s attachment to forms-based thinking and siloed approaches will have a fundamental impact on improving the poor customer perception of the home buying process. 85% of customers experienced some degree of stress which is unsurprising with an average 22 weeks to reach completion and a notoriously opaque and inefficient journey.”
