A new government-backed digital identity trust mark could help remove repeated ID checks from the homebuying process as ministers push ahead with plans to digitalise property transactions.
UK CertifID is being introduced under the government’s statutory Digital Verification Services (DVS) framework, allowing qualifying providers to demonstrate that their services have been independently certified against government standards.
Services must achieve certification against version 1.0 of the UK Digital Verification Services Trust Framework and be listed on the statutory DVS register before they can be licensed to display UK CertifID.
The development could have particular significance for estate agents, conveyancers, mortgage brokers and lenders because the government has identified reusable digital identity checks as one of the technologies needed to reduce duplication during property transactions.
REUSABLE IDENTITY
The government’s homebuying reform programme explicitly proposes greater use of trusted digital verification services to reduce the need for buyers and sellers to prove their identities repeatedly to different professionals.
Ministers say this should help reduce duplication and delays while allowing conveyancers and mortgage lenders to participate in the same digitalised transaction process. The wider reforms also include common property data standards, digital property logbooks, electronic signatures and greater sharing of verified information between professionals.
HM Treasury has separately confirmed that regulated businesses can use registered digital verification services when carrying out identity checks required under the Money Laundering Regulations, although using a DVS does not remove firms’ wider AML obligations.
Chris Williams (main picture), Founder of homebuying and mortgage transformation consultancy Novus Strategy, believes the property market could consequently become one of the biggest beneficiaries.
He says: “After years of waiting, we’re now on the cusp of only having to do that once, allowing other parties involved in a transaction to make faster, earlier and simultaneous progress on things like credit checks, KYC, underwriting and searches.”
HOMEBUYING REFORM
The government has put digitalisation at the centre of its wider attempt to speed up transactions, including plans to support industry-led solutions that make AML checks more shareable and reduce duplication between professions.
Digital identity is already gaining wider acceptance. OfDIA’s latest sector analysis found 77% of surveyed UK consumers had used a digital identity service for at least one purpose, with property checks among the common applications.
Williams adds: “It’s Smart Data in action, as verified identity becomes a reusable artefact that travels with the transaction.
“Time to exchange is as long as it’s ever been. After years of transformation fatigue, the industry should finally be able to start turning things around now that reusable digital ID is gathering pace.”
