Lenders are sceptical about the prospect of the new Personal Property Securities Register encouraging innovation in the credit market, which was part of the rationale for a move to single national register.The secretary of the Attorney-General's Department, Roger Wilkins, said the banking and business communities had not yet recognised the significance of the change.The Personal Property Securities Register, which started operating on January 30, was designed to create a single national property register and a single set of rules for gathering information on personal property with security interests. So far, 23 state and territory registers have migrated a total of 4.8 million records to the PPS Register. Users have carried out one million searches since the launch.Wilkins, who was speaking at the Personal Property Securities Reform conference in Sydney on Friday, said: "This is doing for personal property what the Torrens system did for real property. "Security is no longer tied to a particular concept of lease or mortgage. Having a more general definition might encourage innovation in financial practice."Property is becoming more and more complex, and the interests in property are becoming more complex. I am talking about things like covenants on land erosion."This can widen and deepen financial markets," Wilkins said.The head of equipment finance at Bank of Queensland, Brandon Stannett, was not convinced, however. Speaking at the same conference, he asked: "Are we going to finance against a wider range of asset classes and provide more access to credit for small business? I don't think so."The fundamentals of credit are not changing.  You make the same assessment of the borrower."Capital Finance Australia chief executive Bernie Campbell said: "The idea is that more parts of the balance sheet can be geared under this arrangement because you can have security over a wider range of assets. "I am not sure we will be lending against other assets."Stannett said the improvements he hoped to make to his business from the transition to a single national register included better-informed credit decisions and greater administrative efficiency. "With all security interests recorded in one place we should be able to make better decisions," he said. "And there are efficiency gains to be had from working with a single register, although we won't see them in the short term."