Transferring an existing domain entails changing the domain registrar that handles the domain registration service, so after the transfer, you will have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS record updates through the new registrar company. The transfer procedure itself is standard with most generic and country-code domain extensions. Some country-code extensions are more specific and entail different steps, but in the general case transferring a domain name involves a few necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain name. The lock is a security option, which is being adopted by more and more domain name registry organizations. It is a standard feature supported by all generic TLDs. If a domain name is locked, it will not be possible to start a transfer process, so no one can even attempt to snatch your domain. The lock can be removed only through the account where the domain name is registered and all new domain names that support this functionality are locked by default the moment they are registered.