Two state governments are stepping up to make eConveyancing interoperability a commercial reality.
New South Wales and Queensland have announced that they will take the lead to continue the national eConveyancing interoperability reform despite ARNECC pausing the program.
Late last month the Australian Registrars National Electronic Conveyancing Council said it had even stood down its project team, calling into question whether the December 2025 deadline to achieve interoperability might be credible.
In letters sent to industry last week, NSW and Queensland announced that as the jurisdictions releasing interoperability first, they would be “jointly and proactively exploring options to resolve the issues facing the Program with a view to recommending the design, build and testing of interoperability functionality as soon as possible.”
This comes after ARNECC announced that they would pause the program “to resolve issues raised by the banking industry”, with a call out to the Federal Government for additional support.
Federal support, in small steps, is forthcoming, with the assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh, reported by the AFR to be sympathetic to a wider federal role. There is as yet, however, no intervention by the ACCC, which will be dubious about the ingrained PEXA monopoly in eConveyancing.
Sympli, the primary challenger to PEXA, said yesterday: “This announcement reaffirms NSW and Queensland’s initial plan to deliver competition first in their states by December 2025 through interoperability, a reform which has been nationally legislated and
supported by independently verified and industry regulated dates.”
Sympli CEO Philip Joyce said: “We are encouraged to hear that NSW and Queensland will push ahead with this national reform and deliver what successive Governments have committed to – competition for the Conveyancing market.”