Ministers will no doubt have been gratified to read most of the reactions to the Pension Schemes Bill. It’s pretty rare for legislation to attract words like “game-changer”, “blockbuster”, or “a pivotal moment” (other than in ministers’ own press releases, of course) but on this occasion, it seems many - even most - in the pensions industry are positively inclined. 

There are, of course, dissenting voices. Former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb acknowledged “many worthy measures” in the Bill, but bemoaned the absence of any measures to boost pension adequacy, warning that “with every passing year that this issue goes unaddressed, time is running out for people already well through their working life to have the chance for a decent retirement”. 

Others voiced concerns (not all of them new) about the possibility of government mandating pension investment in UK markets, or of new rules on scheme surpluses affecting members’ incomes in the longer term. 

But perhaps a more interesting response came in a blog from the Pensions Regulator CEO, Nausicaa Delfas, in which she welcomed the Bill, but cautioned that it only provides the “pieces of the jigsaw”. The UK pension system, she continued, is “unfinished business”, with considerable room for development in areas like innovation and quality of trusteeship. And, though optimistic that the Bill can be “the defining moment it promises to be”, her conclusion offered a timely wake-up call to the broader pensions sector: “everyone working in the pensions industry needs to be thinking now about their own role in making these reforms a success.”

The UK’s 2025 Pension Schemes Bill introduces some of the most significant reforms in recent years- reshaping how pension schemes manage assets, members, and future obligations.

Here’s a clear, concise summary of what’s changing and why it matters:

1. Consolidation of Small Pots

• Auto-merging: Pension pots under £1,000 will be automatically consolidated.
• Why it matters: With an estimated 3.3 million lost or inactive pots, this reform aims to reduce fragmentation and improve outcomes for savers.
  

2. Value-for-Money Enforcement

• Mandatory scrutiny: Schemes rated as not delivering value must either improve or wind up.
  
• Why it matters: Trustees and providers will face growing pressure to prove their costs, governance, and returns are aligned with member interests.
  

3. Defined Benefit (DB) Surplus Unlocking

• New flexibilities: Trustees may return surplus assets to employers or members, even without pre-existing resolutions.
  
• Why it matters: While early estimates suggest modest near-term gains (~£8.4B over 10 years), the reform opens the door to long-term changes in how DB schemes manage surplus.
  

4. Superfund Governance and Consolidators

• Formal framework: The bill defines DB superfunds in law and introduces rules around authorisation, inspections, and penalties.
  
• Why it matters: With the Regulator now actively supporting “run-on” as a viable model, superfunds- and consolidators more broadly- will face tighter data and governance expectations, especially when onboarding legacy member records.
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5. Guided Retirement Options

• Default pathways: By 2027–2028, schemes must offer drawdown and annuity options through master trusts or DC vehicles.
  
• Why it matters: Personalisation is no longer optional. Member profiling- including marital status, dependents, and location- will be critical to designing appropriate pathways.
  
  

The Bottom Line

Whether you’re a trustee, administrator, consolidator, or adviser, one message comes through clearly: The regulatory bar is rising- and data standards must rise with it.

Incomplete or outdated records can delay decisions, block transfers, and create compliance risks at precisely the moment the industry is being asked to move faster and do more.

How Heka Can Help

Heka provides web intelligence to help pension schemes complete their member records — from global contact tracing to verifying life events and eligibility. We’re already working with leading administrators and governance providers to support consolidation, de-risking, and dashboard readiness. If you’re preparing for what’s next, let’s talk.

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👉 Download the full Pension Schemes Bill here.

What is data? Loosely defined, data is facts or statistics collected together for reference or analysis. That definition does a poor job of painting a picture to show you what data is, where you can find it, and what to do with it. It’s like the instructions competitors in “The Great British Bake-Off” get during their technical challenge, where they are told to “make bread” or “bake” and not given any additional information. But any collection operation that intends on being around for more than a few more months needs to know a lot more about data than that definition. They need to be eating it, sleeping with it, taking it to meet their parents.

Data should be influencing every decision you make - whom to call and when, what to put in the body or subject line of an email, where to put the “Make a Payment” button on your portal. Data has become a critical asset for making informed decisions and optimizing recovery strategies. As a company focused on helping organizations analyze their data, we’ve seen firsthand how leveraging the right information can drastically improve collection rates and operational efficiency. However, with the vast amount of data available, it can be challenging to identify which data points are truly essential to your collection operation. In this blog post, we'll explore the most important data points you should focus on, how AI in collections and predictive analytics can enhance their value, and provide actionable insights to help you take your collection strategies to the next level.

What makes this such a difficult topic is that this is very much a “your mileage may vary” type of situation. The data that you have access to and that is important to you is going to be different then the data that your peers and colleagues have access to and is important to them. It’s not exactly a snowflake situation, but the nuances and idiosyncrasies of different collection platforms and appetites for risk are going to change the quality and quantity of data inside a collection operation.

Generally speaking, here are some areas that will yield data you can put to good use. Some of this you may have access to and some of it you may not, but you can use this as a departure point.

Customer Financial Profile

• Credit score
• Income level
• Employment status
• Debt-to-income ratio
• Payment History
• Past payment patterns
• Frequency of late payments
• Average payment amounts

Communication Preferences

• Preferred contact methods
• Best times to reach the customer
• Response rates to different communication channels

Behavioral Data

• Website interactions
• Call center engagement
• Response to different collection approaches

Debt Information

• Type of debt
• Age of debt

Now that we've identified some key data points, let's explore how to effectively collect and utilize this information:

• Implement a robust CRM system: Centralize your data collection efforts by using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system tailored for the collections industry. This will help you track customer interactions, payment histories, and communication preferences in one place.
• Leverage alternative data sources: Look beyond traditional credit reports. Utilize public records, social media data, and other alternative sources to build a more comprehensive customer profile. For example, our web intelligence technology allows customers to access alternative data sources and build dynamic and comprehensive consumer profiles.
• Invest in data analytics tools: Employ machine learning for debt recovery to identify patterns and trends in your data that human analysis might miss. Learn how AI is revolutionizing debt recovery and helping companies identify crucial data patterns.
• Train your team on data literacy: Ensure that your collection agents understand the importance of accurate data entry and how to interpret data-driven insights.

Identifying the most important data points that help improve your productivity and efficiency is crucial to the success of your collection operation. Look at the data your operation is creating, talk to others about what data they are using, and work with your vendors to create reports that yield insightful and actionable insights you can put to work today.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Heka Raises $14M to bring Real-Time Identity Intelligence to Financial Institutions

Windare Ventures, Barclays and other institutional investors back Heka’s AI engine as financial institutions seek stronger defenses against synthetic fraud and identity manipulation.

New York, 15 July 2025

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Consumer fraud is at an all-time high. Last year, losses hit $12.5 billion – a 38% jump year-over-year. The rise is fueled by burner behavior, synthetic profiles, and AI-generated content. But the tools meant to stop it – from credit bureau data to velocity models – miss what’s happening online. Heka was built to close that gap.

Inspired by the tradecraft of the intelligence community, Heka analyzes how a person actually behaves and appears across the open web. Its proprietary AI engine assembles digital profiles that surface alias use, reputational exposure, and behavioral anomalies. This helps financial institutions detect synthetic activity, connect with real customers, and act faster with confidence.

At the core of Heka’s web intelligence engine is an analyst-grade AI agent. Unlike legacy tools that rely on static files, scores, or blacklists, Heka’s AI processes large volumes of web data to produce structured outputs like fraud indicators, updated contact details, and contextual risk signals. In one recent deployment with a global payment processor, Heka’s AI engine caught 65% of account takeover losses without disrupting healthy user activity.

Heka is already generating millions in revenue through partnerships with banks, payment processors, and pension funds. Clients use Heka’s intelligence to support critical decisions from fraud mitigation to account management and recovery. The $14 million Series A round, led by Windare Ventures with participation by Barclays, Cornèr Banca, and other institutional investors, will accelerate Heka’s U.S. expansion and deepen its footprint across the UK and Europe.

“Heka’s offering stood out for its ability to address a critical need in financial services – helping institutions make faster, smarter decisions using trustworthy external data. We’re proud to support their continued growth as they scale in the U.S.” said Kester Keating, Head of US Principal Investments at Barclays.

Ori Ashkenazi, Managing Partner at Windare Ventures, added: “Identity isn’t a fixed file anymore. It’s a stream of behavior. Heka does what most AI can’t: it actually works in the wild, delivering signals banks can use seamlessly in workflows.”

Heka was founded by Rafael Berber, former Global Head of Equity Trading at Merrill Lynch; Ishay Horowitz, a senior officer in the Israeli intelligence community; and Idan Bar-Dov, a fintech and high-tech lawyer. The broader team includes intel analysts, data scientists, and domain experts in fraud, credit, and compliance.

“The credit bureaus were built for another era. Today, both consumers and risk live online. Heka’s mission is to be the default source of truth for this new digital reality – always-on, accurate, and explainable.” said Idan Bar-Dov, the Co-founder and CEO of Heka.

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About Heka
Heka delivers web intelligence to financial services. Its AI engine is used by banks, payment processors, and pension funds to fill critical blind spots in fraud mitigation, credit-decision, and account recovery. The company was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in New York and Tel Aviv. 

Press contact
Joy Phua Katsovich, VP Marketing | joy@hekaglobal.com

We’re proud to announce our partnership with ZEDRA Governance to help pension schemes tackle one of the sector’s biggest challenges: tracing missing members.

Following a successful pilot where Heka’s AI-powered tracing identified 50% of previously unreachable members, ZEDRA will now offer our technology to clients via a dedicated architecture, bringing scale and speed to both small and large schemes.

“Reuniting members with their full retirement benefits is a core fiduciary duty,” said Mark Stopard, Head of Proposition Development at ZEDRA Governance. “We’re excited to see the results of this initiative as part of our commitment to helping clients solve the issue of lost pensions.”

Heka's technology helps schemes locate current contact details, life status, and digital signals even when records are outdated or fragmented. By partnering with ZEDRA, we’re enabling better member engagement, reduced risk, and readiness for future reforms.

“Many of the toughest challenges in the pensions sector start with missing data,” said Max Lack, Business Development Manager at Heka. “Solving that unlocks everything else- from dashboard readiness to retirement adequacy.”

Read the full announcement on ZEDRA’s website.

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We’re excited to announce that Heka is now live on NayaOne, the leading fintech and data marketplace for financial institutions.

Through the NayaOne platform, banks and insurers can now securely trial Heka’s external customer intelligence engine- accessing real-time, explainable insights for credit, fraud, onboarding, and more, all within a sandboxed environment.

This marks a major step in making Heka more accessible to innovation teams looking to accelerate decision-making with trustworthy, real-time web intelligence.

We’re proud to support Dalriada Trustees in tracing victims of pension fraud using our AI-driven identity and contact resolution tools. The collaboration has already reunited members with their rightful benefits where traditional tracing methods failed. Read the full article published by Professional Pensions to learn more about how our partnership is helping deliver real outcomes in complex fraud scenarios.

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👉 As featured in Professional Pensions