InsurTech4Good.com Weekly Newsletter – #26, 2025

Before diving into this week’s developments, a quick personal update.

As summer winds down, I’m opening up a few new slots for advisory work starting late autumn and into early 2026. My focus is on bridging the gap between innovation and regulation, working closely with both regulators and the private sector.

For regulators and supervisors, I offer support on innovation policy such as Open Finance and SupTech, ecosystem mapping, capacity-building, and strategic planning. When needed, I collaborate with leading ICT architects to deliver implementation-ready roadmaps.

For insurers and InsurTechs, I help navigate the shifting regulatory landscape including the AI Act, FiDA, and Open Insurance. I also support regulatory-aware business model design and deliver tailored training sessions to help organisations stay ahead of the curve.

With over 15 years of EU and global experience combined with Estonia’s digital-first mindset, I bring both strategic insight and practical collaboration to every project. If you think we could work together, I would be happy to connect. Just send me an e-mail.

Now, to this week’s newsletter.

It covers the launch of the UK’s new open banking body, why pension dashboards are critical to Open Finance, a bold industry letter on data access in the United States, growing momentum for responsible AI from India to Europe, and a timely reminder on the need to balance risk and opportunity in financial supervision.

Hope you enjoy the read!

Andres

New standard-setting body for open banking in the UK

UK conduct regulator FCA shares feedback on the new standard-setting body for open banking and this is among others interesting in light of the EU Financial Data Access (FiDA) discussions, including those on the role of Financial Data Sharing Schemes and the potential role of an EU standardization body.

The Future Entity is expected to be the main standards body for open banking in the UK, subject to future legislation.

Its core responsibilities will include:

1. Setting common standards to ensure minimum service levels and interoperability across open banking services.

2. Monitoring API performance.

3. Ensuring adherence to relevant standards and providing information to the FCA.

4. Offering directory and certification services.

5. Working with multilateral agreement (MLA) owner/operators to develop standards enabling commercial schemes.

The Future Entity is intended to operate as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, with board appointments made by an independent committee.

It will not be a public body and will have no enforcement powers. Its remit may expand in future, potentially covering open finance. Plans to set up an interim entity have been dropped.

Alongside this, there will be a competitive layer of industry-led commercial open banking schemes. These schemes (potentially for-profit or not-for-profit) will develop operational rules, resolve issues, and may innovate beyond common standards to offer premium services. 

The Future Entity will generally not run such schemes, except in cases lacking commercial incentives or where market failures occur.

Read more here. 

Pension dashboards and open finance

I’m speaking at various events and teaching extensively on Financial Data Access (FiDA) and open finance these days, and one of my key messages is always: 

"FiDA is not just a compliance exercise; it can unlock innovative use cases for you and your consumers." 

I was pleased to see this thought reflected in a recent article by Ellie Duncan in Pensions Expert examining pension dashboards in the UK. 

From an EU perspective I would add that pension dashboards are really essential. 

Some countries already have them, and they work well. Many still do not. 

The core requirement? Data access and standardisation. 

FiDA enables this. Without it, we risk a fragmented market.

Pension dashboards are online tools that give citizens access to an overview of their pension entitlements. 

They provide a consolidated view of accrued entitlements and projected retirement income from all possible pension sources, presented in a simple, understandable, and meaningful way.

Enhanced trust. More choice. Better, more informed decisions. Stronger financial resilience. 

These are exactly the kinds of outcomes the Savings and Investment Union (SIU) aims to achieve.

Read more here. 

Open banking in the U.S. 

The future of open banking in the U.S. is at a crossroads and we should keep this in mind in our own Financial Data Access (FiDA) discussions! 

The Financial Technology Association alongside leading voices from fintech, crypto, payments and AI (including Adyen, Andreessen Horowitz, Klarna, PayPal, Plaid, Stripe & others) has issued an urgent letter to President Trump.

The message: Stop the big banks from introducing unlawful “account access” fees that would prevent Americans from connecting their bank accounts to the financial services they trust.

The letter argues that this isn’t about pricing but it’s about control. 

These fees would:

1. Block crypto on‑ramps and weaken U.S. innovation leadership

2. Undercut AI‑driven finance tools that help consumers manage money

3. Stifle digital payments innovation and hurt small businesses

Read more here. 

Responsible AI in India’s Financial Sector

The Reserve Bank of India has published the report of its committee on a Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of Artificial Intelligence in the financial sector (FREE-AI).

The report provides a framework to harness the potential of AI while safeguarding against risks.

It sets out a forward-looking approach, with 26 actionable recommendations under six strategic pillars.

The vision: a financial ecosystem where innovation and risk mitigation work in harmony, not in conflict.

Read more here. 

Explainable AI in Finance and Insurance 

Explainable AI in Finance and Insurance. Important reading for the industry and supervisors, especially following the recent EIOPA Opinion on AI governance and risk management.

The report highlights why explainable AI is essential in finance: ensuring fairness in credit scoring, avoiding bias in insurance, and enabling reliable investment decisions. 

It reviews approaches ranging from inherently interpretable models to post-hoc tools like SHAP, LIME and counterfactuals that shed light on complex systems.

Applications span credit, investment, fraud detection and compliance, yet challenges remain, including the lack of standards, privacy risks, fragmented regulation and limited usability for non-technical users. 

The report also explores alternative approaches such as evaluative and neurosymbolic AI, which seek to balance performance with interpretability and strengthen human oversight.

Oh… and don’t forget that the responsible use of AI systems is not achieved by a standalone measure, but by a combination of different risk management measures.

Read more here. 

Some thoughts on financial supervision

My regulatory and industry network, I would like to suggest you take a look at this speech by Michelle W. Bowman, Vice Chair for Supervision of the Federal Reserve.

Not so much because of the specific context of "tokenisation" (although that is very interesting as well, and as I have argued recently, I personally believe we are at the beginning of real change in the financial infrastructure as we have known it).

What I find compelling is the language used around the role of supervision.

The key point is that it is important to look beyond risks. We must give equal weight to the benefits side of the equation.

Too often, the discussion is dominated by caution and skepticism, focusing on rapid growth, new business models, greater interconnectedness and interdependence.

But risks may be offset, or at least shown to be manageable, when we also recognize and consider the potentially extensive benefits of new technology.

And you can easily substitute "banks and banking supervisors" with "insurance and insurance supervisors."

Plus it seems to me this tendency to look only at risks goes beyond supervisors.

I see it more and more in the industry itself.

Standing still might feel safe, but it is often the most dangerous option or what do you think?

Read more here. 

Gen AI use cases in financial services and insurance

Check how GenAI is used in real life by insurers such as Allianz, Swiss Re, AIG, Manulife, Sun Life, Nationwide and AXA. 

Also see how GenAI is applied in other financial services beyond insurance. 

Read more here.