Sympli, the ASX-backed property settlement provider that has fought for years to connect with the banks and break a PEXA monopoly on conveyancing services, has conceded that this is unlikely and proposed giving up that business and work with its larger rival instead.
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Governments had wanted PEXA to open up to interoperability by December 2021. That was delayed, and planning eventually stopped last year.
“The interoperability system is more complex and expensive to deliver than first expected, and timelines and costs are continuing to blow out,” PEXA wrote in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry in March. “Interoperability will not promote greater innovation because it has emerged that standardisation is essential to the effectiveness of back end functionality.”
In response to Sympli’s push to set aside the interoperability plan for now and focus on the practitioner first mode, a PEXA spokesman said it was “not the role of competitors to engage in discussions about the regulatory structure of an industry which would have commercial implications for both businesses”. “If the regulator or any state government seek to consult on alternative models, we would be happy to engage,” he said.
Many in the industry remain supportive of Sympli, and are hoping state governments continue to push for full interoperability.
“The Law Council of Australia is in favour of competition between electronic lodgement network operators and considers interoperability to be a non-negotiable feature of the e-conveyancing market,” said the council’s president Juliana Warner. “Interoperability as part of true competition will unlock solutions to the practical impediments to lower cost conveyancing.”
Warner said competition between Sympli and PEXA would, in her view, put pressure on prices and “stimulate innovation”.
Similarly, Shakila Maclean, the president of the Australian Institute of Conveyancers’ Victorian division, said allowing Sympli to compete with PEXA would help lower costs for consumers, “similar to how opening up the telecommunications industry in the 1990s led to better prices and services”.
“It’s time for government to put practitioners first and enable choice for the industry while also safeguarding registry concerns around cybersecurity.”
In its parliamentary inquiry submission, PEXA claimed full interoperability would only deliver a $10 million benefit every year, “a very small return”.
Others, like the NSW productivity commissioner Peter Achterstraat, disagree. Achterstraat, a former auditor-general, last year described “the lack of competition in the e-conveyancing sector is one of the most important issues that government can still correct”.
