Concerns and scepticism about AI

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly being rolled out globally, concerns remain around privacy, cybersecurity and accuracy and reliability of outputs.

A survey by the Financial Planning Standards Board of more than 6,000 individual practitioners in finance found that 54% of respondents were either already using or piloting AI in their business (with a further 10% planning to rollout AI in the next 12 months). Respondents believe likely uses of AI will include collecting client information, analysing data and developing recommendations. Yet almost half worried about data privacy and cybersecurity and 42% worried about accuracy and reliability of outputs.

GlobalData’s 2024 Emerging Trends Insurance Consumer Survey, which polled more than 5,500 people across 11 countries, found consumers believed AI could have some benefits. Perceived benefits using AI included shortened time required to reach a customer service representative (73.8%), gains in operational performance (71.5%) and better pattern recognition than humans (71.2%). Those who have engaged with AI insurance chatbots were impressed, with 74.5% reporting being satisfied or very satisfied with the interaction. Despite these beliefs, consumers were found to have data privacy concerns and trust issues.

GlobalData’s 2024 Emerging Trends Insurance Consumer Survey (Q3), found that 39% of respondents would be quite or very comfortable having an AI tool decide the outcome of their insurance claim.

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Code of Banking Practice updated with new commitments to better protect customers against scams

Legal and regulatory update for the life and health insurance sector

17 Apr 2025 - RBNZ’s Assistant Governor/General Manager Strategy, Engagement and Sustainability Simone Robbers will be leaving at the end of May 2025 after six years in the role. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/news/2025/04/ag-gm-strategy-engagement-and-sustainability-leaving-rbnz

23 Apr 2025 - CoFR has released a joint Issues Paper on Access to Basic Transaction Accounts. CoFR is seeking feedback on the proposed introduction of basic transaction accounts to better support customer groups that are currently excluded. The consultation will remain open for eight weeks and will close on 18 June 2025. https://www.cofr.govt.nz/news-and-publications/cofr-seeking-feedback-on-access-to-basic-transaction-accounts.html

23 Apr 2025 - NZ Police Financial Intelligence Unit release “The CASH Report” for March 2025. https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/fiu-monthly-report-mar2025.pdf

23 Apr 2025 - Banks are updating their Code of Banking Practice with five new commitments to better protect customers from scams. The five commitments introduced to the New Zealand Banking Associate Code of Banking Practice include:

• a Confirmation of Payee service for customers to check that the name of the person they are paying matches the account number, which has already commenced roll-out

• pre-transaction warnings to consumers based on the payment purpose

• identification of and response to high-risk transactions or unusual account transaction activity, and the ability to block or delay transactions in some cases

• providing a 24/7 reporting channel for customers who think they’ve been scammed, and responding to protect accounts

• sharing scammer account information with other banks to help prevent criminal activity, and freezing funds where appropriate

The updated Code comes into force on 30 November 2025. 

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/better-compensation-scam-victims

23 Apr 2025 - The FMA release ‘5 mins with the FMA’ podcast #12: Access to Financial Advice Review. https://www.fma.govt.nz/library/podcast/5-mins-with-the-fma-podcast-12-access-to-financial-advice-review/

Proposed changes to Health and Safety Laws

You may have seen the proposed changes to Health and Safety laws, whereby the government wants to reduce compliance costs and provide greater certainty for businesses. Bell Gully have a good summation of the proposed reforms here, but basically the Government is endeavouring to reduce the compliance burden, clarify health and safety duties (including limiting obligations for small, low-risk businesses) and clarify the distinction between governance and operational health and safety responsibilities.

There are many opposing points of view on the changes. Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff has said

"It's disappointing to see the minister has ignored the widespread consensus on what New Zealand needs to do to improve its poor track record and instead has chosen to carve out small businesses from good health and safety practices.

Exempting small businesses from best practice health and safety makes no sense when we know that small business are riskier and need more support."

Institute of Directors general manager Guy Beatson said

"Clarifying that boards are accountable for risk management and safety culture - not hands-on management - will mean directors can better focus on their core governance role without inadvertently overstepping."

Mike Cosman, chair of the Institute of Safety Management said

"The reforms are focused instead on costs to businesses of prevention and not the much greater costs of harm.

This seems to be looking through the wrong end of the telescope to us because the cost of our poor health and safety record is north of $4.9 billion per year to say nothing of the impact on workers and their families."

Russell Hutchinson has taken a look at the proposed regulations and put in his two cents.

As a country we have a not-terrible, but not-so-good track record on health and safety. One measure is fatal accidents, here I have selected countries we often use in comparisons:

Clearly, we are not as bad as, say, the United States. If we delved into that we would see significant variation on a state-by-state basis – but let’s not worry about that for now. Compared to Australia, for roughly every three people who die in a workplace accident there, four will die here. Not so good. What’s surprising is how well the UK performs – better than France and much of the EU, and better than Japan, places I normally consider to be better organised and more prescriptive in terms of employee protections. Not so! I like it when we find good data which challenges my pre-existing view. It’s a reward for paying attention to the data.

Are the proposed changes to governance liability right or wrong? One argument could be that by reducing liability on directors the workplace will become less safe. Another view is that by ensuring we place responsibility on the people who are closest to the problem we will better target the point at which better decisions can be made. Probably we will not know which until we have seen this operate for some time. Progress always seems to be so slow. Incentives also count – and the role of ACC, which has many benefits to our economy, also has some negative effects, somewhat masking the price signal in this case. I wonder if that will also get talked about.

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Health Infrastructure Plan released, which sets out a national, long-term approach to renewing and expanding public health facilities

nib research finds more adults are staying on top of essential health screenings

Recent nib research has found that more adults are staying on top of essential health screenings, but costs remain a barrier. The research was carried out in February 2025 and surveyed 1,010 Kiwi, building on the last survey conducted in December 2023. Some of the key findings include:

• An increasing number of adults are keeping up with necessary health screenings - up to date with eye checks (45% up from 43%), dental check-ups (36% up from 35%), and heart health screenings (31% up from 28%).

• 30% believe their health is better than their peers, up from 25% in 2023.

• Financial concerns are increasingly preventing Kiwi adults from accessing health checks, with 36% citing cost as a barrier (up from 29%).

• 80% of those with health insurance are committed to health screening checks (vs 72% overall).

• More parents feel clear about which screening checks their children need (72% up from 58% in 2023).

• More parents believe an annual health check is essential for their children (84% up from 75% in 2023).

• More children are staying up to date with common screening tests - hearing checks (54% up from 48%), dental check-ups (66% up from 55%), eye checks (57% up from 50%) and general health exams (59% up from 57%).

Rob Hennin, Chief Executive Officer at nib New Zealand, said

“Proactive health screenings can be lifesaving and it’s really encouraging to see that Kiwi are taking the reins when it comes to their wellbeing. It’s clear to see that accessibility and cost issues continue to be barriers.”

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Financial Advice NZ are holding an Ethics Workshop on 8 May

TAP webinar 'Ready to see TAP in action?' 8 May

Westpac launches a pilot for a basic transactional bank account

Banking Reform Coalition wants FMA to get tough on banks not passing on OCR cuts in mortgage rates immediately