Web Services Requirements Definition

The conveyancing industry is highly competitive and has a history of participants deploying technology to enhance their productivity and minimise costs.  Financial institutions have developed sophisticated loan and mortgage documentation systems to service the demand for mortgages efficiently.  Mortgage processors have developed special-purpose systems to deliver mortgage documentation and completion in the shortest possible timeframe.  Legal and conveyancing practices have increasingly adopted proprietary case management systems to automate and control their preparation of conveyancing transactions.  Information brokers have developed systems that provide other industry participants with ready and seamless access to the external information services needed to complete transactions. 

In addition, Land Registries have developed electronic titling systems and Revenue Offices have developed electronic systems for duty assessment.

Increasingly these systems are communicating at a system level.  Web Services is the means for systems to communicate with each other over the Internet while the users of those systems interact only with their in-house systems.

Industry stakeholders have made it clear that for NECS to be of value to them in completing property transactions more efficiently than at present, its functions must be accessible by Web Services.  Web Services is the means by which NECS is integrated with the in-house case management and documentation systems used by conveyancing industry participants. It is expected that the majority of property transactions completed using NECS will be via Web Services access to its functionality.

Implementation of Web Services requires standardisation of both the content of messages exchanged between systems and the means by which the messages are exchanged.  Standardisation of the content of messages is the purpose of the National Electronic Conveyancing Data Standard being developed with the Lending Industry XML Initiative Ltd (LIXI).  Read about this work here.

Standardisation of the means by which messages are exchanged between systems will allow NECS to communicate efficiently with the wide range of systems used by industry and government participants.  Defining the most suitable requirements for Web Services implementation in the NECS environment allows industry participants to ready their systems for communicating with NECS.

In February 2009, the National Office commissioned Saratoga Professional Services Pty Ltd to undertake work in defining the technical and commissioning requirements for Web Services connecting NECS to external systems.  Saratoga undertook extensive consultation with industry participants and developed requirements set out in the report dated August 2009 available here. 

In November 2009, the National Office commissioned Ajilon Australia Pty Ltd to extend and clarify the Web Services requirements necessary for the NECS environment.  Ajilon’s report dated February 2010 is available here. 

If you have any comments on the requirements for Web Services in the NECS environment, please provide them here. 

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