Dubai Land Department pushing for real estate blockchain innovation

The Dubai Land Department (DLD) has been quite active recently, and that continued on June 10 with the announcement that they had reached a memorandum of understanding with the Emirates Telecommunication Group Company, also known as Etisalat. This agreement is related to the Ejari system and real estate blockchain technology.

As part of the partnership, both companies have committed themselves to the implementation of smart government standards as well as the introduction of paperless management of property transactions. This includes the use of digital contracts for all property transactions.

This agreement comes just two weeks after the DLD had made an agreement with Mashreq Bank to use a new e-mortgage system that is intended to greatly improve home loan the registration process. This new system will use blockchain based technology, which should speed up the process and make it much more efficient, digitalizing all of the paperwork involved.

This is clearly part of the company’s commitment to the new paperless management and smart government standards. The amount of paper involved in real estate transactions can be quite excessive, but this move should go a long way towards reducing the excessive amount of paper involved and the use of blockchain technology should help to keep these transactions secure.

The DLD has established some fairly lofty goals. Sultan Butti Bin Mejren, the director general of the organization, explained that he expects that this agreement will help to make Dubai “the smartest city in the world.”

This move should also help the DLD to stay competitive. In April, the United Arab Emirates endorsed a blockchain platform proposed by two telecom operators. In May, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance issued a report which showed that there are already a number of blockchain uses that would be perfect for the real estate industry. This included making land registries trustless, which would increase transparency and make it much easier to be able to transfer properties.

Executives at the DLD could very well feel like they are falling behind, making the partnership a pivotal move for them. If they are going to remain as one of the most prominent real estate groups in the Middle East it became essential for them to design and implement blockchain technology to help them to stay competitive. The partnership with Etisalat looks to have done just that for them.