A series of work to improve the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) has increased the accuracy of registrations, according to new findings released by the Australian Government’s behavioural economics team, BETA.
Following beta’s research findings from 2019, the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) made changes to the PPSR to provide an easier registration experience for infrequent users.
Research shows that key details including the information about the other party in a transaction (known as the grantor) are often incorrectly completed in registrations – which can make the registration ineffective.
As beta’s new report, Prompting accuracy shows, simple changes to the PPSR’s registration process almost halved the number of incorrect registrations for infrequent users.
Using randomised controlled trials, two recommendations from beta’s research were tested – a redesigned review screen and a new layout of the grantor registration page featuring error warnings.
The review screen was designed to stop users from rushing through the registration process and introduced a pop-up highlighting the consequences of registering incorrectly. Users were also asked to confirm details about themselves and the grantor, as well as what they were registering, to check the information was correct.
The trial grantor page reduced the number of incorrect transactions: 22% of PPSR transactions made by those who used the business-as-usual registration form were incorrect, compared to only 12% of transactions made by those who saw the trial page.
Findings from this research will be implemented in the PPSR registration process to reduce the difficulty for infrequent users.
AFSA is committed to continuously improving the PPSR, and is considering how BETA’s research could be applied to the PPSR more broadly.
The full report is available on the beta website at behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au.
