Transferring an existing domain name entails changing the company that handles the domain name registration service, so after the transfer itself, you will have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS resource record updates through the new domain name registrar. The transfer process is standard with most domain extensions. Certain country-code extensions are more specific and entail different procedures, but in the general case transferring a domain involves several necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain. The lock is a safety option, which is being embraced by more and more domain registry operators. It’s a default feature supported by all generic Top-Level Domains. If a domain is locked, it will not be possible to initiate a transfer process, so nobody can even try to snatch your domain name. The lock can be removed only through the account where the domain is registered and all new domains that support this feature are locked by default when they are registered.