ARTL: one lender's view

RoS approached Lloyds TSB Asset Finance in the autumn of 2007 to discuss their participation in the new Automated Registration of Title to Land (ARTL) system. Gillian Dean, who supervises a legal department acting for this finance provider of second securities, was quick to see the time and cost benefits to the company of an electronic registration process.

Getting setup

The technical and security side of the setup process was handled mainly by the company’s IT department. The process is very straightforward and covered the installation of the correct software, IT security procedures and the purchase of smartcard readers.

On 5 November, once the IT elements had been sorted, three members of the RoS ARTL rollout team visited the legal department. Despite the inauspicious date, sparks didn’t fly and the visit, including sessions with staff on the training environment site, went smoothly. This was largely due to the preparation and attention to detail prior to the rollout visit.

Working with ARTL

In January 2008 Gillian attended a feedback seminar on ARTL where she was able to seek clarification on the issues she had encountered, and adopt procedures used by other ARTL users. This included putting in place a pre-compatibility test to see if an application would be ARTL-compatible. The other option was to send out double documentation to make sure that both a mandate and standard security were signed, so the correct paperwork was available if ARTL could not be used. Gillian favours the first solution as it is less administratively heavy and more user friendly.

While her early experiences with the system were not perfect, with support from the ARTL team the issues were resolved. Gillian has now overseen over 1,000 applications going through on ARTL and enjoys the benefits of more secure applications, quicker registration of second securities and a more efficient process.

The future

With any new system, particularly one with this level of sophistication, there will be teething problems, but Gillian has nothing but praise for the attention and support she and her department have received from Registers of Scotland’s ARTL team. Gillian is confident that the ARTL system is already delivering real benefits for her department and will continue to get better and better.