A "central account registry" may help make home loans more portable, assuming the industry, following Government prodding, actually organises itself to make use of a centralised and standardised account list.The registry, as foreshadowed by Wayne Swan yesterday, may primarily serve to foster the switching of everyday accounts. It might also serve as a register of home loans, and make switching of funders easier, as reform advocate Christopher Joye suggests.The Government's statement proposed "the introduction of a central repository to hold all mortgages, so that refinancing a mortgage would not involve a borrower discharging and reinstating their mortgage."The steps from embracing the idea of a central register to actually creating and working with one were not addressed by Swan in the policy document, and the business case for such a scheme is something that Treasury will have to explore.The idea may, however, may dovetail with the effort to establish a nationwide, standardised system for the transfer of land title in Australia, a slow-moving project known as the National Electronic Conveyancing System.Various industry reformers have been labouring behind the scenes to persuade suppliers in the home loan chain to support industry messaging standards, so there may be existing work to build on.The banking industry and ASIC have also collaborated over recent years to develop a modern model for listing personal property securities, a project in the final stages of preparing to go live.So, there are models of cooperation in the industry that could support a central registry, assuming there's any support around the industry to begin with.