BrownBag Series Recap
Date: 31 July, 2025
Speaker: Alya R Prastiti, Intern @ NUS FinTech Lab
This brownbag explored the complexities of Singapore’s Option-to-Purchase (OTP) workflow for residential property transactions, shedding light on the inefficiencies that persist. The discussion revealed how manual hand-offs, fragmented compliance checks, and legal constraints hinder efficiency and transparency, while also outlining pathways for digital transformation.
Mapping the Gaps: Understanding and Redesigning Property Transaction Workflows in Singapore
Understanding the Problem
The current OTP process involves multiple stakeholders—property agents, conveyancing lawyers, mortgage officers, and government agencies such as the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). Despite the availability of digital tools, the workflow remains heavily reliant on manual steps. Lawyers, for instance, are required to conduct searches across various portals:
- INLIS for title checks,
- eLitigation for litigation history,
- MinLaw’s e-service portal for bankruptcy searches, and
- STARS eLodgment for lodgments.
This fragmentation creates delays and additional costs, often forcing practitioners to turn to third-party services. Moreover, the continued requirement for wet-ink signatures—mandated under current regulations—prevents the adoption of more efficient, paperless alternatives.
Challenges in the Current Workflow
The speaker summarized several structural bottlenecks:
- Fragmented portals leading to duplicated effort.
- Absence of real-time notifications, slowing the flow of critical information.
- Mandatory wet-ink signatures, which prevent full digital adoption.
- Heavy compliance burdens, particularly AML/CFT checks and the retention of records for five years.
These challenges collectively limit both efficiency and transparency, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of the current system.
Research Questions Raised
The session framed the inquiry around three guiding questions:
- What pain points most delay or compromise compliance and transparency?
- Which digital capabilities do practitioners most value for efficiency?
- How can digital tools be designed to integrate seamlessly with Singapore’s legal framework?
These questions served as the basis for stakeholder interviews and practitioner-led design exercises, aimed at identifying where digital interventions could have the most meaningful impact.
Towards a Digital Solution
To address these gaps, the session proposed a two-tier digital solution:
- Integrated Due Diligence Platform
- A unified interface consolidating all searches and lodgments.
- Embedded KYC/AML checks and automated compliance workflows.
- Real-Time Collaboration Dashboard
- A secure environment enabling property agents, lawyers, and regulators to coordinate seamlessly.
- Immediate updates on progress and compliance status.
This dual approach aims to streamline workflows while ensuring regulatory compliance.
Future Research Directions
Looking ahead, the next phase of work must go beyond digitizing existing workflows to developing a blockchain infrastructure blueprint that complies with Singapore’s property laws while supporting both traditional sales and emerging fractional ownership models.
Key research areas identified include:
- Fractional Ownership – Investigating how to legally structure, govern, and record shared ownership rights on-chain in a manner consistent with Singapore’s property regulations.
- Legal Entity Requirements – Exploring compliance frameworks for tokenized property ownership involving companies, trusts, or funds, ensuring alignment with KYC/AML standards and beneficial ownership rules.
- Dissolution & Re-Sale Processes – Designing enforceable and technically robust mechanisms for fractional stake resale, buyouts, or dissolution, including smart contract–driven protocols that map onto existing conveyancing practices.
Key Takeaway
The session underscored that the future of property transactions in Singapore will hinge on bridging law and technology. While digitization can streamline existing workflows, the transformative leap lies in creating a blockchain-based infrastructure that enables secure, compliant, and legally recognized property sales—including fractional ownership models. Progress in this space will depend on targeted research into ownership structures, and legal entity compliance, paving the way for a tokenization-ready property market.
