The Bank of England has completed a digital settlement prototype that aims to speed up payments for consumers, firms, the Land Registry and the wider property market.

Completing the UK’s more than one million property transactions a year requires both the transfer of large sums of money and the need to update the Land Register to reflect the transfer of title.  

The Bank of England, HM Land Registry, Bank of International Settlements and digital property transactions firm Coadjute are behind Project Meridian, which aims to simplify house sales.  

This new process replaces the numerous manual steps and checks and avoids the exchanging of paper-based documents entirely, cutting the risk of fraud or transactions being delayed at the eleventh hour, says Coadjute.  

The firm says the settlement works by digitising the workflow between the commercial banks, the Bank of England and the Land Registry.   

Conveyancers connect to the service and send instructions which reserve funds. Then, at a pre-set date and time, the funds for that property transaction, or even for a whole chain of transactions, are moved in synchronisation.   

Funds are then immediately moved, digital deeds are issued, and instructions are sent to the Land Registry to update the register.    

Coadjute chief operations officer and project director John Reynolds says” “Settlement is particularly complex and can only be tackled through deep collaboration and partnership with the public sector.  

“What the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub London Centre has done fantastically well here is create an open, innovative and collaborative environment for the public and private sector to work together to do just that.”