During UK Fintech Week last month, we attended the headline conference, the Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS), which brought together business leaders and policymakers. PEXA is part of the FinTech sector as we provide new payment rails for UK property transactions, and in this blog post we provide a summary of property-related insights we took away.
Across discussions on digital assets, open finance, and payments infrastructure, a consistent theme of the conference was that the next phase of innovation will be defined by how effectively we connect data, systems and stakeholders across sectors.
As one of the most complex and data-intensive consumer journeys, the property market stands to benefit enormously from the principles of open finance and smart data. The transactions to buy and sell homes sit at the intersection of payments, lending, identity and legal processes, so as the data being passed between those systems evolves, so too must the way transactions are executed.
A maturing ecosystem – and a more urgent mandate
Senior figures, including Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman at City of London Corporation, highlighted the critical role of financial services in supporting the broader UK economy. Against a backdrop of global uncertainty, the UK’s digital infrastructure (spanning fields such as payments, identity and fraud prevention) is becoming increasingly important.
This tone of messaging was also reinforced by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who in her own address confirmed continued government backing for FinTech growth, including support for digital assets and tokenisation. At the end of last year, a consultation was issued on home buying and selling reform (we expect the hear the outcomes towards the end of May), and at IFGS we heard that another consultation is imminent, this time focused on the future of payments infrastructure.
Digital assets and smart data: from opportunity to necessity
Lucy Rigby, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, described digital assets as not just an opportunity, but a necessity for the UK.
Across the conference, open finance and smart data were prominent on the agenda. What began with open banking is now expanding into a broader, cross-sector vision, where data can be securely shared, with consent, to deliver better outcomes for consumers and businesses.
The property sector was repeatedly cited as a critical use case, which is not surprising. Buying or refinancing a home involves multiple parties (such as estate agents, brokers, lenders, conveyancers) each operating with their own systems and data. The process is inherently fragmented, often manual, and heavily reliant on trust between participants.
Smart data offers a path to address this complexity:
- Enabling real-time access to verified information
- Reducing duplication and re-keying of data
- Supporting faster, more transparent decision-making
In short, property transactions are exactly the kind of multi-stakeholder challenge that open finance is designed to solve.
The importance of trust, interoperability and commercial models
While the technical foundations are advancing, several speakers emphasised that success will depend on more than technology alone.
Ian Phoenix, Director of Intelligence, Digital & Innovation at the Financial Conduct Authority, highlighted the importance of ensuring data is delivered with the right content, context and consent. This reflects a broader focus on trust frameworks, ensuring that participants can rely on both the data and the systems that share it.
Interoperability was another recurring theme. For cross-sector data sharing to work, systems must be able to communicate effectively, both within the UK and internationally.
Liz Brandt, CEO of Ctrl-Shift, highlighted the commercial challenge, noting the need for innovation and incentives models that encourage adoption at scale. Without clear value for each participant in the ecosystem, even the most well-designed frameworks risk slow uptake. This is particularly relevant in property, where change requires coordination across a wide range of stakeholders, each with different priorities and constraints, and each with existing (often long-standing) business and commercial models to consider.
A shared challenge: pace
Every year this conference sets the tone for the rest of the year in the FinTech sector, and this year a key message was that whilst the UK has the foundations in place across many key areas, the focus must now shift to delivery, at pace.
The building blocks are already in place, including a long-established FinTech sector, regulatory support for innovation and a growing adoption of digital services. Yet numerous speakers highlighted the risk that the UK’s early leadership in FinTech could be undermined by slow execution and fragmented implementation.
For the property sector, this challenge is particularly acute. The benefits of digitisation (such as faster transactions, reduced risk, improved customer experience) are well understood. The question is how quickly those benefits can be realised at scale.
What this means for the future of home buying
The direction of travel in home buying and selling is already clear. Property transactions are moving towards a more connected, data-driven model, which aligns with the broader ambitions of open finance.
In practical terms, this could mean:
- Greater use of verified, reusable data across the transaction lifecycle
- More seamless integration between mortgage lenders, conveyancers and other participants such as mortgage brokers and estate agents
- Reduced friction in processes such as identity verification, affordability checks and funds transfer
- Shorter transaction timelines and increased certainty for buyers and sellers
However, achieving this will require continued collaboration across industry, government and regulators. It will also require a focus on practical implementation, which means moving from pilots and proofs of concept to everyday use.
From ambition to reality
IFGS highlighted that the FinTech sector is aligned on direction, but conscious of the work still to be done. The message was that foundations are in place, but the next phase is about making them work in practice.
In the property sector, the challenge is to translate potential into real-world outcomes – delivering a home buying and refinancing experience that is faster, more transparent, and better connected for everyone involved.
At PEXA, we’re focusing our efforts on enhancing the ‘last mile’ of the property transaction – the completion process. Our recent collaboration between PEXA UK and NatWest to enable digital mortgage completions is a tangible example of new payment rails for property being adopted in practice.
We’re looking forward to playing our part in the next phase of FinTech in the UK.