Nationwide Building Society recently announced that it is joining the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), thus following in the footsteps of Lloyds Banking Group. Nationwide’s main goal is to contribute to the effort to bring a standardized approach to sharing digital data in the home-buying process.

Benefits of Bringing Property Data to Digital Format

According to the OPDA, under 1% of property data is available openly in digital format. This makes it difficult to catalog and review properties, and in the digital age, it is high time that this changes. The OPDA’s goal is to change this by developing transparent, standardized data-sharing practices.

With such practices in place, buying and/or selling homes would be significantly simpler, and much faster than it is today. Not to mention that the same information is often requested multiple times as different parties develop an interest in the same pieces of property.

Sometimes, various businesses, such as estate agents, lenders, and solicitors, need access to this information. OPDA believes that having one version of the data will significantly simplify the process and, along the way, improve turnaround times.

As a result, the time between having an offer accepted on a home and conducting the exchange would be cut much shorter, enabling greater efficiency. Another benefit of having shareable and trustworthy data that is easily accessible in an open digital format is that it would go a long way in reducing fraud or preventing transactions from falling through.

Nationwide Following in Lloyds’ Footsteps

Due to the numerous benefits of the move, Nationwide Building Society has taken steps to follow Lloyds by collaborating with the Association. Meanwhile, it will work on developing a framework with a common data dictionary. This would be a standardized way of describing property attributes, as well as a methodology for sharing data with provenance and trust.

Commenting on the move, Nationwide Building Society’s head of property risk, Rob Stevens, said that Nationwide wholeheartedly supports OPDA’s mission to change the way houses are bought and sold. He said that the implementation of open data standards, improvement of technology and security standards, and encouragement of transparent data sharing in the mortgage and wider property sector will all contribute to that mission.

“Accurate and trusted data about a property is vital to giving people confidence in the market,” Stevens concluded.

Also commenting on Nationwide’s new membership, OPDA’s chair, Maria Harris, called it a huge milestone. She added: “Having a well-known and respected brand such as Nationwide as an OPDA member will really boost the message around the importance of open data standards to digitizing property transactions.”