Nationwide has become a member of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) to support its efforts to speed up the homebuying process by sharing digital property information across the housing market.

The largest building society in the UK believes that converting all property data sources and documents to a digital format and making them shareable is essential if the homebuying process is to be more efficient because less than 1% of property information is currently available digitally.

Founded last June, OPDA’s mission is for every company in the mortgage and property chain to have access to the same property information, or open data, in a digital, standardised, and trusted format. This year it delivered its framework for property data standards, which has made free and shareable data tools available across the property industry.

Nationwide says it will champion consumer awareness and drive industry engagement of what digital property data is and why it is necessary. Already contributing to the open data standards, Nationwide has committed to implement and drive the adoption of OPDA’s framework in its own solutions and with its industry and technology partners.

Henry Jordan, Nationwide’s director of home, said: “At Nationwide, we are totally committed to improving the end-to-end house buying and homeownership journey. Our joining OPDA is a major part of this commitment as standardisation of data is vital for achieving improvements. We can bring our wealth of mortgage experience as well as customer engagement and insights to ensure that data is shareable to create a safer, more trusted experience for customers.”

Rob Stevens (pictured), Nationwide’s Head of Property Risk, said: “We wholeheartedly support OPDA’s mission to change the way people buy and sell houses by implementing open data standards, improving technology and security standards and encouraging transparent data sharing across the mortgage and wider property sector.

“Accurate and trusted data about a property is vital to giving people confidence in the market.”

Maria Harris, chair of OPDA, added: “Nationwide’s membership marks another huge milestone for our mission to radically transform the homebuying process for the better.

“Having a well-known and respected brand such as Nationwide as an OPDA member will really boost the message around importance of open data standards to digitising property transactions.”