InsurTech4Good.com Weekly Newsletter – #21, 2025

Below is another episode of my InsurTech newsletter. Once again, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on! I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know.

A few personal updates as well:

I’m very happy to see my name on the list of top voices in insurance and InsurTech globally — alongside so many people I truly admire.

And I’m especially glad to be ranked number one in Estonia!

This week, I’ll be heading to the Unchain FinTech Festival at the beautiful Oradea Fortress, where I’ll be speaking about Open Finance and the Financial Data Access (FIDA) proposal.

UNCHAIN brings together Central and Eastern Europe as Europe’s growth market and a global hub for tech development. It serves as a nexus where the financial industry and fintech providers unite to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

If you’re around and think it’s worth connecting—ping me!

What else is happening this coming week?

Well, many of us are watching closely for the outcome of the second trilogue on the Financial Data Access Regulation (FIDA). I’ll keep you posted with the freshest updates.

Finally, as we head into summer, I’ll be switching this newsletter to a bi-weekly schedule. Summer tends to be a bit slower on the regulatory front (even the EU machine takes a break), and I also plan to spend a bit more time offline.

Best,

Andres

P.S. If you're navigating InsurTech regulation, policy, or innovation—and think I can help—don’t hesitate to get in touch.

📬 Subscribe to my newsletter here
📌See how I can help you here
🔗 Follow me on LinkedIn
📧 andres@insurtech4good.com

17 practical steps to get started with AI Agents in financial services

IBM's recent paper on Agentic AI in Financial Services proposes 17 steps to get started with AI agents in finance. The paper also covers opportunities, risks, and the responsible implementation of AI agents.

Read more here. 

Back to basic: the difference between open banking and open finance

Open finance takes the core idea of open banking and expands it to cover your entire financial life. Not just your bank accounts, but everything - credit cards, loans, investments, retirement accounts, and even insurance policies.

This enables insurance dashboards, broader money management tools, pensions dashboards, insurance comparators, switching services, tools to help advisors do their job and reduce the cost of financial advice, more informed decisions, and ultimately empowers financial health and well-being.

What I do not fully agree with in this graph is the suggested origin. Both open banking and open finance can be regulatory-driven, market-driven, or a mix of both.

In the EU, we are currently discussing the idea of expanding open banking principles to all other financial services, including insurance and pensions. This initiative is called the Financial Data Access Regulation (FIDA).

Let me know if you would like to learn more about how it might impact your business and compliance - and what opportunities it might open up. It will truly impact all areas of financial services.

Open insurance and permission dashboards

Under Financial Data Access Regulation (FiDA), customers must have effective control over their data and confidence in managing permissions they have granted.

Data holders should therefore be required to provide customers with common and consistent financial data access permission dashboards.

The permission dashboard should empower the customer to manage their permissions in an informed and impartial manner and give customers a strong measure of control over how their personal and non-personal data is used.

It should not be designed in a way that would encourage or unduly influence the customer to grant or withdraw permissions.

There are still discussions if it should be market-wide or provider-specific.

Read more and see potential mock-up here.

Savings and Investment Union (SIU) and the Financial Data Access Regulation (FiDA)

I wrote a piece on the Savings and Investment Union (SIU) and the Financial Data Access Regulation (FiDA) interaction. 

It’s not possible to achieve the goals of the Savings and Investment Union (SIU) without the Financial Data Access regulation (FiDA).

The SIU aims to create better financial opportunities for EU citizens and enhance the system’s ability to connect savings with productive investments.

This leads to more choice for savers and allows businesses across Europe to grow.

It offers citizens greater opportunities to save for retirement, major life events, and long-term goals (e.g. children’s education or buying a home).

By allocating savings into productive investments supporting EU priorities (climate, innovation, defence), citizens can achieve higher returns and better prepare for their future.

The SIU is a horizontal enabler that will create an ecosystem to finance EU strategic objectives.

FiDA can support two of its core pillars: encouraging retail participation in capital markets and developing the supplementary pension sector. 

Read more here about how it can do this here. 

AI and skills shortages in finance

Amongst all UK industries, financial services will be the sector most impacted by AI, with disruption likely in the form of tasks, and roles, either being replaced or enhanced.

For most of the workforce, the report says, AI will enhance the demand for existing skills, rather than create new skills. 

And while AI specialists provide essential expertise, they make up a small share of the workforce (up to 1.5% of workers), whereas an understanding of AI is required across the entire workforce.

However, there remains a 35 percentage point gap between AI-related skills demand and the availability of talent.

Skills gap in financial services will prevent the sector from unlocking the growth opportunities of AI so think today how to address it on your organization!

Read more here. 

Financial services sandboxing on steroids

I’m a firm believer in innovation facilitation. Mainly as a tool to bring regulators and innovators closer together and help them understand each other better. 

This is something that cannot be underestimated and has positive spillover effects in the long term. And as with everything, there is also room for innovation in how these are set up.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will launch a Supercharged Sandbox to help firms experiment safely with AI to support innovation.

Through a new collaboration, announced today, firms will have the opportunity to experiment with AI using NVIDIA accelerated computing and NVIDIA AI Enterprise Software.

This Supercharged Sandbox will give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation. 

It is open to any financial services firm looking to innovate and experiment with AI. The sandbox will help firms who are in the discovery and experiment phase with AI.

Read more here. 

National Bank of Georgia AI Sandbox 

To support innovation in the financial sector, the National Bank of Georgia is launching a new pilot project - the A.I. Sandbox - within its Regulatory Laboratory.

The project aims to facilitate the safe integration of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), into Georgia’s financial and banking sectors.

The initiative provides a trusted, controlled, and regulated environment where companies will have the opportunity to test and develop technological solutions aimed at enhancing the efficiency and accessibility of financial services.

Read more here. 

BlackRock targets $700 billion in insurance

BlackRock targets $700 billion in insurance by 2030 according to its latest Investor Day Report.

Read more here. 

New UK data access bill paves the way for evolution of open banking to open finance

The UK Government has passed the Data (Use and Access) Bill through the House of Parliament, paving the way for expansion of open banking and smart data sharing across multiple business sectors.

Read more here.