One Zero Bank is shedding roughly a fifth of its growth-era headcount even as its financial results improve, a reversal of the usual pattern in which layoffs follow bad news rather than good. The Israeli digital bank will lay off approximately 25 employees, about 7% of its roughly 350-person workforce, while also leaving around 10 additional planned positions unfilled. Taken together, the bank's staffing level will end up roughly 10% below what it had originally budgeted for, a deliberate recalibration tied to its expanding use of automation and artificial intelligence.
A Pattern of Recurring Cuts
This marks the third round of layoffs at One Zero since early 2024, following cuts of more than 30 employees that year and another 23 in September, for a total exceeding 50 job losses over twelve months. What sets this latest round apart is the backdrop: rather than contraction or distress, the bank is reporting expanding revenue, shrinking operating costs, and a narrowing net loss. Digital banks everywhere are under pressure to prove that lean staffing and automated infrastructure, the kind of efficient, always-on architecture more commonly associated with consumer tools like this service, can coexist with rapid customer growth rather than undermine it. this service
Gafni's Rationale: Growth Without Expanding Costs
In a letter sent to affected staff on Sunday morning, CEO Eyal Gafni framed the decision as a necessary, if painful, transition. He acknowledged that those being let go were employees "who built ONE ZERO alongside us, invested in it, and played a significant role in our journey and our successes." But he was equally direct about the bank's strategic posture going forward: substantial growth, he wrote, must now happen "without a corresponding increase in operating costs." The cuts are spread across departments rather than concentrated in one function, with adjustments made, in the bank's own words, "wherever technology helps us accelerate processes."
What the Numbers Show
The financial picture lends weight to Gafni's argument. Salary and related expenses fell 8.8% in 2025, to NIS 120 million from NIS 131.7 million the previous year, a decline the bank attributes to tightened budgetary discipline and a reshaped workforce mix. In the first half of 2026, revenue rose 33% to NIS 66 million while operating expenses dropped 10% to NIS 149 million, narrowing the net loss by 27% to NIS 84 million. The bank's customer base has surpassed 200,000, and its annual loss has steadily shrunk from NIS 357 million in 2023 to NIS 214 million in 2025, with profitability targeted for 2027.
Automation Without an Explicit AI Replacement Claim
One Zero has stopped short of saying laid-off employees are being directly replaced by artificial intelligence. Instead, it describes a broader efficiency push: generative AI and automation tools are allowing the bank to simplify internal processes and operate with a flatter organizational structure, reducing the manpower needed to scale. That distinction matters. It reflects a wider trend across financial technology, where institutions increasingly treat automation not as a one-to-one substitute for staff but as a structural shift that changes how many people are needed to support a given level of business. For digital banks competing on cost and speed, that shift is likely to keep reshaping hiring plans well beyond this latest round.