UK-based building society Nationwide has joined the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), as part of its commitment to the implementation of Open Data standards in the homebuying process.
Founded in June last year, OPDA’s mission is for every company in the mortgage and property chain to have access to the same property information, or Open Data, in a “digital, standardised, and trusted format”.
Less than 1% of property information is currently available digitally, which means the same information is sometimes requested as many as five times by different parties, such as lenders, estate agents and solicitors, according to the Association.
This year, the Association has delivered its framework for property data standards, which has made free and shareable data tools available across the property industry.
As a member of the OPDA, Nationwide will champion consumer awareness and drive industry engagement of what digital property data is and why it is necessary, and will also implement and drive the adoption of OPDA’s framework in its own solutions and with its industry and technology partners.
Henry Jordan, Nationwide’s director of home, said: “At Nationwide, we are totally committed to improving the end-to-end house buying and homeownership journey. Our joining OPDA is a major part of this commitment as standardisation of data is vital for achieving improvements.
“We can bring our wealth of mortgage experience, as well as customer engagement and insights to ensure that data is shareable to create a safer, more trusted experience for customers.”
Converting all property data sources and documents to a digital format and making them shareable will help to speed up the homebuying process, reducing the time between having an offer accepted on a home and the exchange.
Open Data also has the potential to reduce instances of fraud and prevent property transactions falling through, the OPDA states.
“We wholeheartedly support OPDA’s mission to change the way people buy and sell houses by implementing Open Data standards, improving technology and security standards and encouraging transparent data sharing across the mortgage and wider property sector,” added Rob Stevens, head of property risk at Nationwide.
“Accurate and trusted data about a property is vital to giving people confidence in the market.”
Maria Harris, chair of OPDA, called Nationwide’s membership a “huge milestone”.
“Having a well-known and respected brand such as Nationwide as an OPDA member will really boost the message around importance of open data standards to digitising property transactions.”
In March this year, Lloyds Banking Group became a member of the OPDA.
