Proptech PEXA enhances digital conveyancing with acquisition of Optima Legal

08 September 2022: PEXA, operator of the world’s first digital property exchange platform, today announces that it has agreed to acquire specialist property law firm Optima Legal from Capita to support the digitisation of property transactions and digital conveyancing in the UK.

Headlines:
    • PEXA, the PropTech unicorn powering the Australian digital property exchange, has acquired specialist large scale UK property law firm Optima Legal from Capita plc (Capita)
    • The deal aims to support the digitisation of the UK conveyancing process, allowing PEXA to scale and showcase the benefits of its platform to other conveyancers
    • PEXA’s UK platform went live this week with the first remortgage transaction successfully completed

Optima Legal is a high-volume, property law firm headquartered in Leeds that provides legal services in the UK’s fee-assisted remortgage and equity release market, working directly with six of the UK’s top eight mortgage lenders, equating to approximately 22% share of the remortgage market. 

PEXA’s offering is a streamlined and automated solution that is integrated into Her Majesty’s Land Registry and the Bank of England, enabling frictionless remortgages and faster settlements. By integrating PEXA’s platform, Optima Legal will be able to demonstrate the benefits of digital completions to its lender and customer base, starting with PEXA’s remortgage offering.

For consumers, this means increased speed and certainty, greater transparency of the post-offer process, and better loan deals created by ease of switching, while lenders stand to benefit from reduced processing costs, decreased time to settlement, and increased remortgage capacity. 

Additionally, it provides conveyancers with a streamlined platform, delivering, among other things, a higher quality of service for customers.  

An open-access platform, PEXA can support major lenders through their various panel firms, while also working directly with small and mid-tier lenders to enable a better customer experience. Lenders can also choose to utilise PEXA’s technology directly, via Optima Legal, or via any UK conveyancing firm that integrates with PEXA’s platform. 

The acquisition marks another milestone in the rapid progress PEXA has made since its launch in the UK earlier this year. PEXA’s UK remortgage offering launched successfully yesterday with the Hinckley & Rugby Building Society and legal firm Muve. Shawbrook Bank is set to follow shortly. This follows successful testing with a cohort of seven mortgage lenders in January 2022, and development of a new payment scheme with the Bank of England, PEXA Pay, to streamline the remortgage process. 

Given Optima Legal’s established track record of providing UK lenders with high-volume remortgage services, its acquisition will support the adoption of PEXA’s remortgage platform across the market. PEXA’s broader digital solution to transform the sale and purchase process, building on its remortgage platform, is expected in market in 2024.

James Bawa, Chief Executive, PEXA UK, comments: 

“The acquisition of Optima Legal marks a significant step forward for PEXA in the UK and demonstrates the strength of our commitment to delivering transformational change that will benefit consumers, conveyancers and lenders alike.

“We look forward to working with the Optima Legal team to integrate our technology, showcasing the benefits of digitisation – from improved accuracy and efficiency to reduced costs. Importantly, our platform will remain available to all.

“Working with stakeholders across the industry, and starting with remortgaging, we aim to streamline a conveyancing system that has been under significant pressure. One in five borrowers have abandoned the remortgage process in the past two years, given delays, complexity or poor experiences [1].

“We want to make that is a thing of the past as interest rates rise. 

“This announcement complements the confirmation of our first two lenders to go live – Hinckley & Rugby Building Society, our first reference site with a strong track record of supporting new technology entrants into the UK, and Shawbrook Bank, our first retail bank.” 

The acquisition of Optima Legal will be funded from PEXA’s existing cash reserves and is subject to customary transaction conditions and approvals, including from the Solicitors Regulatory Authority of England and Wales, and is expected to complete by the end of calendar 2022. 

 

[1] In March 2022, PEXA commissioned research company to Opinium to survey 1,000 UK consumers that had remortgaged within the last 24 months.

 

Kindly shared by PEXA

Main article photo courtesy of Pixabay