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Amid ongoing challenges to improve competition in e-conveyancing, the Australian government is being urged to implement a “practitioner-first” interoperability release as a first step.
Electronic Lodgment Network Operator (ELNO) Sympli is pressing the federal government and the Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council (ARNECC) to adopt a “practioner-first” release of the interoperability regime as an initial move to provide choice for lawyers and conveyancers.
Currently, electronic lodgements are dominated by PEXA, which holds around 90 per cent of the e-conveyancing market share.
While the interoperability regime – which was scheduled to be ready by 31 December 2025 – aims to facilitate competition by allowing practitioners to transact efficiently with all other parties while subscribing only to the ELNOs they choose, the move has been beset by challenges.
In recent months, major ELNO challenger LEXTECH withdrew from the scheme, leaving Sympli as the only player challenging the monopoly held by PEXA.
In order to ensure that the interoperability regime can move forward, Sympli is now calling for a ‘practitioner-first’ interoperability release.
This would mean that lenders could keep using PEXA for their e-conveyancing if they so wished, but “tens of thousands of lawyers and conveyancers” could use their platform of choice.
Sympli said that while this would not immediately address the need for market resilience (particularly in the face of recent technical issues impacting PEXA), it would provide “much-needed choice and benefits for small businesses” more quickly.
The ELNO said these benefits include “lower fees and innovative features” available through Sympli’s platform.
Sympli CEO Philip Joyce said: “Sympli remains fully committed to delivering competition as the second ELNO in this market and choice to tens of thousands of lawyers and conveyancers across industry.
“A practitioner-first release means that practitioners can get that choice sooner – and that’s a great result for lawyers and conveyancers across Australia.
“We are calling on government to deliver on their commitment to deliver competition to our industry through this practitioner-first release.”
A look back at interoperability challenges
Sympli has continued to push for interoperability and e-conveyancing competition, particularly following a series of outages from PEXA. Indeed, the NSW Parliament recently highlighted “the ongoing outages plaguing the eConveyancing monopoly network” and called on the NSW Registrar to investigate PEXA’s “technical issue” on 16 May, which disrupted property settlements for several hours.
The incident, which impacted mobile signing capabilities, led to delays and reschedules for a small proportion of settlements (believed to be less than 10 per cent of settlements during that period).
The company expressed apologies for the inconvenience, saying: “We sincerely apologise to any customers who were inconvenienced.”
But the future of the interoperability regime itself has been called into question with the recent withdrawal of LEXTECH, one of the two ELNOs previously working towards being part of the regime.
LEXTECH, which is used by more than a third of Australia’s lenders, announced its decision to withdraw its application to be an ELNO, citing a lack of faith in the economics of the reform.
Peter Maloney, the CEO of LEXTECH, said: “There has never been broad-based appetite or support for a second ELNO; neither banks nor the legal and conveyancing industry have collective support for it. While some politicians, government agencies and property professionals might demand competition as a blanket rule, the economic viability of a 2nd ELNO simply does not stack up.”
Maloney said that PEXA is “already highly regulated and performs its tasks with remarkable efficiency and reliability” and LEXTECH would instead focus on its core business of mortgage origination and settlement services.
This withdrawal leaves Sympli as the sole remaining challenger to PEXA’s near-monopoly in the e-conveyancing market, where PEXA currently holds around 90 per cent of the market share, settling over $800 billion in property transactions annually.
Conveyancers and brokers have consistently voiced concerns about the lack of alternatives in the market, saying that any threats to PEXA put the entire system at risk.
Shakila Maclean, president of the Victorian division of the Australian Institute of Conveyancers (AIC), described the recent PEXA disruption as “widespread in VIC” and highlighted the immense pressure it placed on practitioners.
The AIC National further said: “The reality is that PEXA currently operates as a de facto monopoly. With no meaningful alternative available to practitioners in most jurisdictions, any outage, no matter how brief, can have far-reaching consequences for consumers and conveyancers alike.
“Greater competition and genuine interoperability are urgently needed to ensure resilience, choice, and continuity in the digital property settlement space.”
[Related: E-conveyancing competition calls intensify after PEXA ‘issue’]
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