Welcome to the second Insurance Briefing of 2018 - our fortnightly round-up of insurance legal and business developments with analysis and commentary from the insurance team at Pinsent Masons.

The three topics we're focusing on this week include:

PRA proposes less stringent insurance regulatory reporting requirements 

Plans to reduce regulatory reporting restrictions for UK insurers and mutuals under the Solvency II Directive have been published by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).  The consultation, which closes on 13 April, is the third in a series of consultations on potential "targeted improvements" to the rules to be published by the PRA since October. These came in response to lobbying from MPs on the Treasury Committee and the UK's insurance industry, who have claimed that the UK was particularly stringent when implementing the regime in January 2016.

Fintech in 2018: start-ups going global; innovation in payments and breach notification fatigue.

An increasing number of fintech companies going global and emerging innovation in payment services are among the trends that are likely to arise in the financial technology (fintech) market in 2018. The year ahead will be shaped to a large extent by a number of major changes in legislation, from the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) this month and implementation of MiFID II, to the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive in May. There is also the prospect of Brexit coming into focus as we head towards 2019.

Report shows growing cyber risk and fraudsters targeting confidential information

Fraudsters are targeting confidential information held by businesses more than money, stock or other physical assets, a security consultancy has reported. Kroll said that 29% of senior executives surveyed as part of its global fraud and risk report for 2017/18 said their company was defrauded of information in the last year. Slightly fewer respondents said their business had suffered theft of physical assets or stock.

Insurance briefing is a round-up of legal and business developments published on  Out-Law.com.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances,