PEXA grilled in NSW as competition deadline slips

By Gavin O'Malley · 2026-08-05

What the inquiry is and who is before it

Every time a property changes hands in Australia through a digital settlement, there is a very good chance one company processed it. PEXA accounts for approximately 99% of all digital property settlements nationwide, a market position that has drawn the attention of a NSW Legislative Council select committee now examining whether competition reforms in electronic conveyancing are working.^[1] For buyers, sellers and the conveyancers sitting between them, that figure tells the whole story: one operator, one price, take it or leave it.

The committee held a public hearing on 5 November 2025 and received submissions from industry participants including InfoTrack, LawLab Pty Ltd and the Australian Institute of Conveyancers NSW Division.^[2] These are the businesses that deal with PEXA every working day, and their evidence describes a market where the theory of competition has not yet met the reality of switching costs, technical barriers and a regulator whose own program is currently on pause.

The monopoly question

Greens MLC Abigail Boyd did not soften her framing at the November hearing. "This Parliament gifted PEXA a monopoly position," Boyd said, cutting to what critics argue is the root cause of the current situation.^[3] It is a charge worth unpacking, because it goes to how Australia's e-conveyancing market was built in the first place.

Electronic conveyancing in Australia was established under an intergovernmental agreement in 2011, which created the Australian Registrars' National Electronic Conveyancing Council, known as ARNECC, to oversee a national framework replacing paper settlements with digital transactions. PEXA launched as the first Electronic Lodgment Network Operator under that framework. By the time it was fully privatised in January 2019, network effects and mandatory subscriber rules had already cemented its dominance. A rival platform entering that market faces a structural problem: every bank, every law firm and every conveyancer in the country is already plugged into PEXA, and changing that plumbing is not a weekend job.

Submissions from competitors make clear that the barrier is not simply inertia. InfoTrack's submission describes how the inability to transact directly with PEXA-connected parties forces rivals to operate in a de facto sub-market, limiting their practical reach regardless of the quality of their product.^[1] Until platforms can exchange settlement data with each other in real time, a buyer's conveyancer on one platform and a seller's conveyancer on another cannot complete a transaction together. That is the interoperability problem, and it is the reason ministers committed to fixing it.

The interoperability commitment and what happened to it

At a Ministerial Forum on 9 November 2023, ARNECC and ministers from the federal government and the states and territories agreed that NSW and Queensland must enable e-conveyancing interoperability on or before 31 December 2025.^[4] It was a firm deadline, not a target, and it came after years of design work including what ARNECC described as technically completed 'Day 1' transactions in September 2023.

ARNECC paused the design, build and test working groups for its Interoperability Program and stood down the Interoperability Project Team as of 20 September 2024, less than ten months after that ministerial agreement was signed.^[5] The said reason was banking-industry issues that had stalled the program's progress. Whether those issues have since been resolved, and what the December 2025 deadline now actually means in practice, is squarely before the committee.

The NSW Registrar General moved to shore up the framework in May 2025, issuing a direction under NSW Operating Requirements compelling Electronic Lodgment Network Operators to comply with the outcomes of ARNECC's Interoperability Reviews.^[1] That direction gives the Registrar General a lever if platforms do not comply, but a direction compelling compliance with reviews is not the same as live interoperability running in the market. The gap between the two is where the current debate sits.

NSW Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Jihad Dib has spoken positively about the reform trajectory. "The Minns Government is fully committed to this critical reform and achieving this milestone is the result of significant work and collaboration over several years across jurisdictions," Dib said.^[6] The committee will want to know whether that commitment comes with a revised operational timeline, or whether the December 2025 deadline is being quietly absorbed into the kind of bureaucratic time that stretches without announcement.

What a settlement costs and who pays

For anyone buying or selling property, the practical question is what PEXA's dominance means for their settlement bill. PEXA's fees are paid through the conveyancing process, typically passed on to the buyer or seller as a disbursement in the conveyancer's account. Because there is no effective competitor to benchmark against in most transactions, the fee is what it is.

Two separate fee increases are scheduled to take effect in 2026: an Industry Data Standard charge from 18 May and a CPI-linked increase of approximately 4.1% from 1 July.^[1] The Industry Data Standard charge is a new line item, meaning settlement costs in 2026 will rise on two separate dates rather than one. Conveyancers will need to update their disclosure documents, and clients will see higher figures without necessarily understanding why there are two separate increases.

The timing of those rises, announced while an inquiry into PEXA's market power is actively sitting, has not gone unnoticed by submitters. The inquiry has no power to roll back pricing decisions, but the political visibility of the increases sharpens the committee's ability to press PEXA on how it justifies its fee structure in the absence of competitive pressure. A company with 99% market share does not face the usual discipline of a customer threatening to take their business elsewhere.

PEXA's response

PEXA's public position is that it welcomes interoperability and has invested substantially in readiness. The company points to its participation in ARNECC's technical working groups and its compliance with the regulatory framework as evidence of good faith. On fees, PEXA has argued that its pricing reflects the investment required to maintain a high-reliability settlement infrastructure and that the CPI-linked rise is a standard commercial adjustment.

What the inquiry is probing is whether those positions are sufficient when the interoperability program meant to introduce competitive discipline has been paused, the ministerial deadline is now weeks away, and the company under scrutiny is the one that benefits most from the status quo. The committee's final report will need to address whether the December 2025 deadline lands with substance or lapses without consequence.

Gavin O'Malley

Gavin O'Malley writes about property and housing. He spends his time at auctions and on building sites, and is more interested in what buyers and builders are actually paying than in what the forecasts say.