Nationwide has joined the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) in the hope of speeding up the homebuying process.
Following its entry into OPDA, the bank will help digitise the homebuying process, aiming for a safer, more transparent experience for its customers and employees.
Additionally, Nationwide will work to promote consumer awareness and drive industry engagement in what digital property data is and why it is necessary.
Rob Stevens, Head of Property Risk at Nationwide, remarked: “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.
“Accurate and trusted data about a property is vital to giving people confidence in the market.”
As the UK moves to a more digital future, it is believed that converting all property data sources and documents to a digital format, whilst also making them shareable, is essential to improve the homebuying process.
OPDA has shared that the same information is frequently requested as many as five times by different parties, such as lenders, estate agents and solicitors. To combat this and improve efficiency, OPDA hopes to have one version of the data readily available, which will be digital.
However, less than 1% of property information is currently available digitally, emphasising the huge amount of work that needs to be done and the importance of banks like Nationwide joining the initiative.
Henry Jordan, Director of Home at Nationwide, commented: “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.”
Founded last June, 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.
This year the association has made significant strides towards its goal, delivering its framework for property data standards, which has made free and shareable data tools available across the property industry.
Nationwide isn’t the first UK bank to join the initiative, however. In March, Lloyds Banking Group announced it had joined OPDA to revamp sluggish real estate transactions using digital data.
Maria Harris, Chair of OPDA, said: “Nationwide’s membership marks another huge milestone for our mission to radically transform the homebuying process for the better. 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.”