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Plans in place to register electronic ownership of share certificates held as collateral for bank loans in 2027

National Land Survey of Finland and the banks are cooperating on a plan for an operating model for converting share certificates held by banks as loan collateral into electronic ownership records in bulk.

Ihmisellä käsissään aito paperinen osakekirja
Riku Nikkilä

Concurrently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has prepared amendments to the legislation on the Residential and Commercial Property Information System to enable mass digitalisation. These amendments aim is to speed up and streamline the transfer of housing company share certificates that are held by banks as collateral for loans to electronic ownership records. 

In practice, mass digitalisation means that paper share certificates can be converted into electronic ones without processing each share certificate separately through the current individual ownership registration and cancellation procedure at the National Land Survey of Finland. 

“This is a change that we have been waiting for. The law will enter into force in early 2027, but it will take until late autumn for customers to be able to take action. When everything is ready, we provide them with instructions. Right now, if a shareholder has entered a share certificate as collateral for a bank loan, we would ask them to patiently wait for instructions from both the banks and the National Land Survey,”  says Janne Murtoniemi, Director of Apartment Ownership Services. 

If the customer has a paper share certificate that they keep at home, they can bring it to the National Land Survey’s customer service to be digitised.  

Comments on the legislative consultation

Proposals for amendments to the legislation concerning the Residential and Commercial Property Information System are out for consultation from 24 February to 7 April 2026. The proposed law is intended to enter into force on 1 January 2027. 

You can comment on the consultation at https://www.lausuntopalvelu.fi/FI/Proposal/Participation?proposalId=e25e0afc-1e95-4ff8-805c-14e58baf5af6 
 

Additional information  

Press release of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 25 Feb 2026 

Janne Murtoniemi, Director, Registration Process, National Land Survey of Finland, +358 40 710 8862, firstname.lastname@nls.fi

 

Residential and Commercial Property Information System

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