Participants in Australia’s e-conveyancing system conducted a long-awaited interoperability trial this week, with the industry body rating it a success and a program milestone. The Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council reported that the “Day 1 Transactions” involved two refinancing transactions relating to properties in Queensland and involving PEXA and Sympli Australia, the two licensed electronic lodgement network operators (ELNOs). Commonwealth Bank and NAB were the participating banks. Interoperability, which allows multiple ELNOs to host parties participating in the same transaction, is under development in Australia.  When e-conveyancing emerged in Australia a decade ago, PEXA was the only ELNO. It still has a market share of around 90 per cent. Sympli was established in 2018 and completed its first transaction in 2019.  Governments are keen to have competition in the market and the Ministerial Forum on National Electronic Conveyancing mandated interoperability in May last year.  It set a start date of September 2022, which was pushed back to March this year and then September, when the first transactions finally occurred. Sympli has accused PEXA delaying the rollout of interoperability. In a statement issued in March, Sympli chief executive Philip Joyce said: “Sympli has consistently met or beaten the required dates and has consistently advocated for faster and safer implementation. “I’m sure industry stakeholders can draw their own conclusions as to the key drivers of these delays. Industry reform cannot be anchored in the incumbent’s timelines, given its incentive to retain the status quo.” For its part, PEXA has said: “Interoperability was never contemplated at the time the PEXA platform was built. It was not designed with interoperability in mind, which is what makes the introduction of interoperability to an existing platform so complex and potentially risky in terms of security and stability. “This is critical when the platform is used by 160 financial institutions, 9100 law firms and conveyancers and 20,000 Australian families a week.” ARNECC said in a statement this week: “The Day 1 Transactions were designed to test the capacity of both ELNOs to act as the responsible ELNO and the participating ELNO in an interoperable workspace, liaise with the outgoing and incoming mortgagee banks and successfully complete lodgement of the associated dealing at the Queensland Land Registry. “The Day 1 Transactions were completed successfully on 12 September in accordance with the current program timeline. [They] represent a critical milestone, demonstrating that the technical solution developed by ELNOs is capable of delivering on its objective – enabling electronic lodgement networks to interoperate in order to complete an electronic conveyancing transaction.” ARNECC’s timetable envisages a phased implementation, starting with a “limited scope refinance” with a small number of financial institutions, before moving to complete refinance functionality, full functionality in New South Wales and Queensland and finally rollout to all jurisdictions.  ARNECC said it expects interoperability to be fully functional by the end of 2025.