Nationwide has joined the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) to support its efforts to speed up the homebuying process by sharing digital property information across the housing market. The move is designed to help digitise the homebuying process.

Currently less than 1% of property information is currently available digitally, which has the potential to slow transactions, given that the same information is sometimes requested as many as five times by different parties, such as lenders, estate agents and solicitors, according to OPDA.

It is hoped that having one version of the data will simplify the process and improve turnaround times, reducing the time between having an offer accepted on a home and the exchange. Shareable and trustable data will also reduce fraud, and prevent transactions falling through, all of which will be hugely beneficial to consumers.

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 it delivered its framework for property data standards, which has made free and shareable data tools available across the property industry.

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.”

Rob Stevens, Nationwide’s head of property risk, commented: “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.”

OPDA has called on the government to digitise the entire home buying and selling process within three years. Its chair, Maria Harris, gave evidence in May to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee’s ‘Improving the home buying and selling process’ inquiry.

It is also working with government, through the Digital Property Market Steering Group and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to encourage the adoption of open data standards.

Harris added: “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.”