One Zero Bank, Israel's digital banking venture, is cutting roughly 25 jobs, about 7% of its 350-person workforce, even as its financial results improve and customer numbers climb past 200,000. The bank will also leave around 10 additional positions unfilled, pushing total headcount to roughly 10% below its original staffing plan. The layoffs, communicated to affected employees on a Sunday morning, mark the third such round since the start of 2024.
What distinguishes this cycle from the two that preceded it is timing. Earlier layoffs at One Zero came amid financial strain; this one arrives alongside narrowing losses, rising revenue, and falling operating costs. CEO Eyal Gafni framed the decision as a structural shift rather than a response to distress, telling staff that the bank must now grow "without expanding our workforce or cost base." That logic mirrors a broader pattern across digital-first financial institutions, where automation and generative AI tools are increasingly treated as substitutes for incremental hiring. For consumers navigating this more automated banking landscape, security fundamentals matter more than ever - much as individuals are encouraged to secure home networks through practices like a router-level VPN setup, institutions handling sensitive financial data are under growing pressure to harden their own digital infrastructure as fewer human hands touch each transaction. router-level VPN setup
Gafni's letter acknowledged the discomfort of the decision, describing the departing employees as people "who built ONE ZERO alongside us, invested in it, and played a significant role in our journey and our successes." The cuts were not concentrated in any single department. Instead, the bank said reductions were made "wherever technology helps us accelerate processes," suggesting a distributed application of automation across functions rather than the elimination of one specific unit or role category.
A Pattern of Efficiency Drives
One Zero's 2024 layoffs totaled more than 50 employees across two rounds: over 30 in the early part of the year and another 23 in September. Those cuts coincided with heavier losses - NIS 268 million in 2024 and NIS 357 million in 2023. By contrast, 2025 losses narrowed to NIS 214 million, and the bank's first-half 2026 figures show revenue up 33% to NIS 66 million, operating expenses down 10% to NIS 149 million, and net losses reduced by 27% to NIS 84 million. Salary costs alone fell 8.8% in 2025, to NIS 120 million from NIS 131.7 million, a decline the bank attributes to "adjusting the workforce mix to current challenges and tightening budgetary discipline."
Automation Without Explicit Replacement Claims
One Zero has stopped short of saying laid-off employees are being directly replaced by artificial intelligence systems. Instead, the institution frames automation and generative AI as tools that allow a leaner organizational structure to handle growing transaction volumes and customer demand. This distinction matters for how the layoffs are understood: it is not a one-to-one substitution of software for staff, but a broader redesign of workflows that reduces the total headcount required to operate at scale. The approach is consistent with strategy the bank outlined in its 2025 reporting, which emphasized automation as a route to sustained operational efficiency rather than a one-time cost-cutting measure.
What Comes Next
Gafni has said the bank is approaching its first profitable month, with full-year profitability targeted for 2027. If that trajectory holds, One Zero would complete a multi-year transition from a loss-making digital banking startup to a sustainably profitable institution, achieved in part through workforce reductions implemented during a period of growth rather than contraction. That sequencing - cutting staff while performance improves - is likely to remain a point of scrutiny as other digital banks weigh similar automation-driven restructuring.