The organisations will work together where required to ensure interoperability of e-commerce activities for their respective user communities.

PISCES is a non-profit international organisation that has developed open e-commerce standards required to support communications between all parties involved with conveyancing, together with many other property related information exchanges.

Origo is currently working with 16 mortgage lenders, a number of national intermediary firms, suppliers and other third parties to develop e-commerce standards that support the distribution and transaction of mortgage and related products.

Paul Pettitt, managing director of Origo, commented: "The concept for developing e-commerce standards is the same for both organisations in that we provide a common computer language that allows the efficient, automatic transfer of data between different systems. Although we do work in different areas of the market there will be some instances where collaboration will be necessary to the benefit of any mutual customers."

"We have a close working relationship with Origo," commented Roger de Boehmler, director general of PISCES. "The standards we both develop serve to form efficient business connections for e-commerce and ultimately make life easier for those working in the industry, plus improve the quality of service for the customer. It therefore makes sense that we collaborate particularly to achieve a seamless handover point between the finance providers and the conveyancers."

PISCES has published e-commerce standards within the property industry for 10 years and recently published an open standard for Home Information Packs (HIPs). PISCES is also publishing further XML standards this year for Residential Conveyancing, Searches, Occupancy Costs and Investment Valuations.

Origo is currently liaising with members of the mortgage standards initiative to determine the industry's e-commerce requirements and priorities for the development of mortgage standards. Initial feedback has resulted in demand for standards to underpin a range of business processes, including: Decision-In-Principle/Approval-In-Principle; Key Facts Illustrations; Full Application; Sourcing; Case Tracking; Procuration Fee reconciliation. Consultation with lenders and intermediaries has also shown demand for the consideration of adoption of UNIPASS to address the issue of multiple passwords for lenders' extranets.