MOSL, the non-household water market operator, has launched a central hub to simplify transactions between wholesalers and retailers.
For the first time a standardised process will be used to verify meters or other supply arrangements, which is the most common process in the market accounting for 17,000 transactions last year.
“Cumbersome and inefficient” interactions between wholesalers and retailers was one of three areas highlighted by Ofwat for improvement in its State of the Market report. The regulator called on the sector to take decisive action to resolve the frictions that have existed since the market opened in 2017.
As part of MOSL’s mission to simplify the retail market, the organisation worked with industry and regulators to move away from wholesalers using individual processes.
Previously, transactions could be processed differently by each of the 15 wholesalers, instead of having a standardised system, resulting in around 70 processes, some of which are rejected by the processing system.
MOSL will coordinate work to review, refine and agree other bilateral processes to add to the hub in the next few months.
John Gilbert, director of MOSL’s bilateral transformation programme, said: “Today marks the first step towards having these processes managed in one central system, which will help make processes faster, simpler and more reliable.
“Not only will the bilateral transactions help improve trading parties’ efficiency, but it should also result in a better experience for customers, which is essential for enabling the market to unlock value and choice for customers. This has been an enormous team effort and is testament to an extraordinary amount of collaboration and close working across the market.”
The overhaul involved broad industry-wide engagement and remains a top priority in MOSL’s three-year business plan.