The planned implementation of a unified register of lenders' security over property, the Personal Property Securities Register, looks likely to be pushed back from the present start date of October 31.If the Attorney-General's Department should decide on a delay it is likely to be for at least three months, meaning the register will come into force from February 2012. (The legislation establishing the PPSR sets 1 February 2012 as the commencement date for the new register if not activated earlier).The PPSR will replace more than two dozen existing registers operated by state governments and the Australian government that list the security held by lenders over real assets, and over most intellectual property assets.The Attorney-General's Department, state government departments, banks and specialist information brokers have worked collaboratively for more than five years to scope out the project, with detailed design work and implementation being undertaken over the last two years.The new PPSR will clarify the priority of lenders' interests and serve as a central, publicly accessible register for securities in personal property.Those who will use the register have had access to the new system in various test environments since February this year, but some critical test windows have opened up only in the last few weeks.At a seminar hosted by the department on Friday, officials told banks and other users that they couldn't go live if the software wasn't properly tested, or the industry wasn't ready.Bank staff at the seminar have told Banking Day that there was insufficient time left to do proper testing on the system as it currently stands, and that the department will have to move the date.The Attorney-General, Robert McLelland, has until the first week of September to certify that the system is ready to implement, if his department and key stakeholders regard the present timetable as viable. However, a decision to defer implementation seems likely based on accounts of the seminar held on Friday.Of two testing streams operating at present, one, known as UAT, is planned to run for four weeks - half the eight-week window planned earlier, a period viewed by many banks as being too short in any case.The UAT system is also, according to some accounts, not properly testing business-to-government web services.A second test environment, known as Discovery, is not getting enough support, or patches, to allow users (such as banks) to certify that their software is compliant.The Attorney-General's Department advised on Friday that there was no change to the published timetable. It did not respond to follow up requests for comment yesterday.