From the Blog
Articles & Insights
Analysis and commentary on financial innovation, regulation, AI, Open Finance, and SupTech.
16 April 2026 · 2 min read
Everybody Talks Revolut's AI. Nobody Talks Insurance.
Revolut's PRAGMA foundation model, built with NVIDIA on 24 billion banking events, is an insurance story as much as a banking one. The debate for our industry is no longer about which LLM to pick. It is about who has access to the customer's real financial life.
9 April 2026 · 6 min read
The Financial Companion You Don't Have Yet
Why the future of financial services needs a sherpa, not a product catalogue Most people think a sherpa is a guide who takes you to the top of the mountain. That is only part of the story. The Sherpa people live in the Himalayan mountains, but in the Western world they are best known as expedition companions, which is why the ethnic name is so often used as a job title. A team of high-altitude sherpas includes at least six distinct roles. The sirdar coordinates the entire operation. The route-
2 April 2026 · 3 min read
EIOPA's Third IDD Report: What It Tells Us About Digital Distribution and AI
EIOPA just published its Third Report on the application of the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD). It covers a lot of ground: market structure, cross-border activity, advice quality, sustainability disclosures and inducements. But the section on digitalisation and AI in insurance distribution is where things get most interesting. The headline finding? Digital distribution in insurance is progressing slowly. Digital tools are mostly used for internal efficiency, not customer-facing distribu
29 March 2026 · 1 min read
Stablecoins Meet Insurance: Aon's Proof of Concept
Insurance moves $7 trillion in premiums globally. Most of it still settles through correspondent banking chains built decades ago. Aon just tested something different. The broker completed the first known stablecoin premium payment among major global brokers. A proof of concept using USDC on Ethereum and PYUSD on Solana, in partnership with Coinbase and Paxos. This is not a crypto story. This is an insurance payments story. The insurance value chain runs on premium flows: client to broker, br
14 March 2026 · 1 min read
£43 Billion: What the UK's Open Banking Numbers Mean for the Open Finance Debate
New analysis commissioned by Open Banking Limited (OBL) and completed by EY puts a number on what many of us have suspected: open banking is not just a technology initiative. It is an economic growth engine. At full maturity, open banking could deliver up to £43 billion per year to the UK economy. The modelling is grounded in specific use cases across payments, savings, lending and cloud accounting. Open banking has already delivered an estimated £8.3 billion in cumulative benefit to date, with
13 March 2026 · 3 min read
Reframing Risk: What Vanguard's Research Means for the Savings and Investment Union
Vanguard just proved that the way we warn investors about risk is making them too afraid to invest. In a study of 2,220 people, they rewrote the standard risk disclosures that every investment firm uses, the ones regulators require, the ones we all know by heart. "Capital at risk." "Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns." The result: a 23% reduction in customer drop-off rates. Not from removing warnings. From rewriting them to be human. This is not a UX story. This is
12 March 2026 · 3 min read
Estonia Is Making AI Feasibility Assessment Mandatory in Its Legislative Process
Estonia has proposed an amendment to its Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting Rules (HÕNTE), the framework governing how the government prepares laws and regulations. Among the changes: a new obligation requiring policymakers to assess whether automation or AI could be part of the solution, every time a new legislative initiative is prepared. The amendment is in public consultation, with changes taking effect on 1 May 2026. This is not a strategy document or an innovation white p
11 March 2026 · 2 min read
Is ChatGPT an Insurance Distributor in the EU?
EIOPA Q&A 3407 asks the European Commission whether AI chatbots fall under the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD). The answer could reshape how we think about AI in financial services. Question 3407, submitted to EIOPA in August 2025 and now forwarded to the European Commission, asks whether publicly accessible AI chatbots fall within the scope of insurance distribution under the IDD. I have been writing about this dynamic recently in light of the Nippon Life lawsuit against OpenAI. That w
9 March 2026 · 2 min read
Insurance company Nippon Life just sued OpenAI for $10.3 million
A disability claimant uploaded correspondence from her lawyer into ChatGPT. The AI validated her concerns about the legal advice she'd been given. She fired her lawyer, then used ChatGPT to try to reopen a case that had already been settled and dismissed. When a judge denied that, she filed a new case and dozens of motions that Nippon says ChatGPT drafted. No licence. No accountability. The insurer had no idea until it was back in court. This looks like a LegalTech story. It's InsurTech. Beca
6 March 2026 · 5 min read
The Financial Sherpa: Why the Future of Finance Is Not a Product
I have been thinking about Sherpas lately. Not metaphorically. Actually reading about what they do. Most people think a Sherpa is a guide who takes you up the mountain. That is only part of the story. There are at least six distinct roles in a Sherpa team. There is the sirdar, who coordinates the entire operation. The icefall doctor, who goes weeks ahead of everyone else to fix ropes and ladders across crevasses, building the route before anyone can use it. The climbing Sherpa, who walks next t
28 February 2026 · 2 min read
Plaid Hits $8B Valuation. Insurance Is Part of the Story.
Plaid just raised new capital at an $8 billion valuation, up from $6.1 billion in April 2025. The round was structured as a tender offer to provide liquidity for employees. CEO Zach Perret says this should be Plaid's last funding round before an IPO. Most coverage focuses on Plaid's core banking connectivity and its growing role in payments infrastructure. What gets less attention is that insurance is becoming a visible part of Plaid's strategy. What Plaid offers for insurance Plaid now has a
6 October 2025 · 2 min read
SupTech in insurance supervision
The State of SupTech The State of SupTech Report 2024 is out – the global benchmark on how financial authorities are adopting and scaling supervisory technology. Now in its third edition, the report draws on data from 136 financial authorities, 23 solution providers, and a longitudinal sample of 221 agencies across 144 jurisdictions. Key takeaways: 1. SupTech is shifting from experimentation to systemic deployment. 2. Authorities face challenges in procurement, data management, and AI read