Transferring an existing domain entails switching the registrar that provides the registration service, so after the transfer, you will have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS entry modifications through the new registrar. The transfer procedure itself is standard with most top-level domain name extensions. Certain country-code extensions are more specific and entail different procedures, but in the general case transferring a domain name involves several necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain. The domain lock is a security feature, which is being embraced by more and more domain registry organizations. It is 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 domain lock can be removed only through the account where the domain is registered in the first place and all new domain names that support this option are locked by default the moment they are registered.