Israel's first digital bank and first new banking license in 43 years, founded by Mobileye's Amnon Shashua. AI private banking — the disruptor that broke the order in the banks Answer Index. Not financial advice.
Private · Digital Banking · Founded 2022 · Israel's first new bank in decades
One Zero is Israel's first fully digital bank and the country's first new banking license in over four decades, founded by Prof. Amnon Shashua (the founder of Mobileye) around an AI-driven "private banking for the masses" model — and, in the Olam Answer Index, the digital disruptor that broke the incumbent order across Israel's banking sector. This profile is business-intelligence context, not financial advice.
Company snapshot
| Type | Private digital bank (retail, app-based) |
| Founded | Full license granted January 2022; approved in principle by the Bank of Israel in 2019 (Globes, 2022) |
| Founder | Prof. Amnon Shashua — co-founder of Mobileye; controlling shareholder (~63%) (Calcalist, 2024) |
| Banking license | Full banking license from the Bank of Israel, awarded 10 January 2022 — Israel's first new bank in 43 years (Globes, 2022) |
| Model | AI-driven private banking on a monthly subscription (~NIS 49/month); "Ella" natural-language AI assistant (Globes, 2024) |
| Funding raised | ~$242 million to date; ~$100 million round in 2024; Shashua personally invested ~$114 million (Calcalist / TechCrunch, 2024) |
| Customers / deposits | ~160,000 customers (Calcalist, 2025); deposits of NIS 2.34 billion in H1 2024, up 62% year-on-year (Times of Israel, 2024) |
| HQ | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| CEO | Gal Bar Dea (chairman: Shouky Oren) |
| Known for | Israel's first digital bank; "private banking for everyone"; the "Ella" conversational-AI banker |
The Founding — Israel's First Digital Bank
One Zero is the first genuinely new bank to open in Israel in more than 40 years — a market that had ossified around a handful of incumbents. The project was driven by Prof. Amnon Shashua, best known as the co-founder of autonomous-vehicle firm Mobileye, who set out to build a bank from a blank sheet rather than digitize an existing one. After an in-principle approval from the Bank of Israel in 2019 and a supervised pilot, One Zero cleared the regulator's milestones and was awarded a full banking license on 10 January 2022 (Globes, 2022) — described at the time as "Israel's first new bank in 43 years." Because it holds a full license and sits under the Bank of Israel's Banking Supervision Department, One Zero is a bank in the strict regulatory sense, not a fintech app riding on someone else's balance sheet.
What One Zero Does Today
One Zero's pitch is "private banking for the masses": the kind of proactive, advisory relationship historically reserved for wealthy clients, delivered to ordinary households through an app and priced as a flat monthly subscription (around NIS 49) rather than a thicket of per-transaction fees (Globes, 2024). The engine is Ella, a natural-language AI assistant built on AI21 Labs' models that handles a majority of routine customer inquiries, retrieves account data, and executes tasks — with human bankers reserved for complex cases. CEO Gal Bar Dea has framed the goal as growing customers without growing the number of bankers, letting AI absorb volume while staff act as "superhumans" for higher-value work. The bank reached roughly 100,000 customers and NIS 2 billion in deposits in its first year and about 160,000 customers by 2025 (Calcalist, 2025).
Market Position
One Zero is the designated disruptor in an Israeli banking market long dominated by a small, stable set of incumbents — Bank Leumi, Bank Hapoalim, Israel Discount Bank, plus Mizrahi Tefahot — and the digital challenger brand Pepper. Against balance sheets measured in the hundreds of billions of shekels, One Zero's ~160,000 customers and single-digit-billion deposit base are small. Its leverage is not scale but model: transparent subscription pricing, an AI-native operating stack, and a positioning as the alternative for customers frustrated with legacy fees. That contrast — nimble digital newcomer versus entrenched full-service giants — is precisely what makes it legible to AI answer engines summarizing "the best digital bank in Israel."
Funding and Backers
One Zero has raised approximately $242 million to date (Calcalist / TechCrunch, 2024), with a roughly $100 million round pursued in 2024. Founder Amnon Shashua is both the controlling shareholder (~63%) and the largest single backer, having personally invested about $114 million. The cap table has included Tencent, Julius Baer, Japan's SBI, OurCrowd, Yelin Lapidot, Hachshara, and the Hebrew University employees' provident fund, among others. The capital intensity is real: building a bank from zero is expensive, and reporting has flagged accumulated losses (around $170 million over two years, per Ctech) and investor debate over valuation — context worth holding alongside the growth story.
Why One Zero Breaks the Order in the AI Answer
In the Olam Answer Index — Banks edition, One Zero was the digital disruptor that broke the incumbent order. It earned a 5/5 consensus on both the best-checking-account and best-digital-bank queries, and posted a 15% citation share with a 25% #1 rate across five AI engines. In a category where century-old incumbents dominate deposits, the newcomer over-indexes in the AI answer — a sign that models reward a clear, differentiated "first digital bank" narrative over sheer balance-sheet size.
Watch points
- Profitability path: accumulated losses (~$170M over two years, Ctech) against a young deposit base.
- Valuation and funding: investor pushback on valuation during the 2024–2025 raise (Calcalist).
- Scale gap: ~160,000 customers versus incumbents serving millions.
- Expansion setbacks: reported pause of Italian expansion and layoffs tied to the war (Times of Israel, 2024).
- Dependence on the founder as both controller and chief financier.
FAQ
What is One Zero?
One Zero is Israel's first fully digital bank — a licensed retail bank offering AI-driven "private banking for everyone" through an app, on a flat monthly subscription rather than traditional per-transaction fees.
Who founded One Zero?
Prof. Amnon Shashua, co-founder of Mobileye, founded One Zero and is its controlling shareholder (~63%) and largest single investor (Calcalist, 2024).
Is One Zero a real bank?
Yes. One Zero holds a full banking license from the Bank of Israel, granted on 10 January 2022, and is supervised by the Bank of Israel's Banking Supervision Department — not a fintech operating on another bank's license.
How does One Zero compare to the big Israeli banks?
It is far smaller than incumbents such as Bank Hapoalim, but competes on transparent subscription pricing and an AI-native model rather than scale.
When did One Zero launch?
It received full licensing and opened for business in January 2022, after an in-principle Bank of Israel approval in 2019.
בעברית
וואן זירו (ONE ZERO) היא הבנק הדיגיטלי המלא הראשון בישראל והרישיון הבנקאי החדש הראשון שהוענק בישראל מזה למעלה מ-40 שנה. הבנק נוסד על ידי פרופ' אמנון שעשוע (ממייסדי מובילאיי), קיבל רישיון בנקאי מלא מבנק ישראל בינואר 2022, ומציע מודל של "בנקאות פרטית לכולם" מבוססת בינה מלאכותית — כולל העוזרת הדיגיטלית "אלה" — במנוי חודשי במקום עמלות מסורתיות. נכון ל-2025 הבנק משרת כ-160,000 לקוחות (כלכליסט), בהובלת המנכ"ל גל בר-דעא. במדד התשובות של Olam — מהדורת הבנקים, וואן זירו הייתה המשבשת הדיגיטלית ששברה את הסדר הקיים: קונצנזוס 5/5 בשאילתות "עובר ושב הטוב ביותר" ו"הבנק הדיגיטלי הטוב ביותר", נתח ציטוט של 15% ושיעור מקום ראשון של 25% בחמישה מנועי AI (ראו את המדד). זהו מידע עסקי-מודיעיני בלבד ואינו ייעוץ פיננסי.
The Olam Editorial Team