By: Dim Amor

Opening an account in just 7 minutes sounds like an ideal solution for the digital age, but this special investigation reveals the complex reality behind the glowing promises of ONE ZERO Bank. A bank that boasts slogans about "private banking that works for you" and "saving time and money", but in practice leaves many customers stuck in a system that doesn't meet even their most basic needs.

Promising Quickly, Disappointing Slowly

The digital bank ONE ZERO presents itself as an innovative solution in the Israeli banking system. Opening an account within minutes, without needing to visit a physical branch, sounds like a real breakthrough. Indeed, the account opening experience receives praise – fast, efficient, and supported by patient representatives who are ready to help with the process and even provide phone guidance.

However, the picture changes dramatically once the customer completes the account opening process. What starts as a positive experience quickly turns into a journey of frustrations. The bank's promise that the credit card will arrive within a few days via courier proves to be an empty one. Many customers report waiting a month or more to receive their card, during which time they find themselves unable to perform basic actions such as withdrawing cash, making purchases, or even setting up digital payment methods like Bit or a digital wallet, which require card details.

A prominent case documented in this investigation tells of a courier named Aviv Shevi, who called a customer after about a month of waiting and promised, "If I'm in the area, I'll drop off your card". A month and a half later, the customer is still waiting for his card. During that time, his birthday occurred, but without a credit card, he couldn't celebrate properly. All he received from the bank was a "Happy Birthday" greeting from the "Ella" bot – a greeting that can't be used to pay at a restaurant.

Banking Without Bankers: The Race for Human Response

Digital banking is supposed to be more accessible than traditional banking, but the reality at ONE ZERO Bank is the opposite. The bank prides itself on being a "branch-less bank," but in practice, this translates to "a bank without real service." Instead of available human response, customers must deal with a bot named "Ella" (AI), which is limited to providing general information only and is not authorized to perform real actions on the account.

Alongside "Ella" there is also "Alon", who is presented as a banker but is also limited to providing information only and not performing actual actions. While waiting times for opening an account are just a few seconds, existing customers must wait 30-40 minutes on the line, and ultimately reach a message service – an external company that only collects details and promises that a banker will get back to the customer.

The promise that "a banker will get back to you" becomes an endless chase. In the best cases, the banker returns after about five days. In many other cases, there is no return at all. This problem is especially severe in economic emergencies, when a customer needs to make an urgent transfer or discovers suspicious movements in their account. In such cases, the app shows an "error", and "Ella" and "Alon" are not authorized to solve the problem.

Attempting to communicate with the bank via email leads to additional frustration. The email addresses published on the bank's website are not active, and messages return with an error message that the address doesn't exist. This disrespect for customers deepens the feeling that ONE ZERO Bank is not interested in real communication with its customers.

Non-Compliance with Judicial Decisions: When the Bank Ignores the Law

Our investigation revealed a particularly serious problem regarding the bank's conduct with judicial decisions. While the bank is very quick to impose liens on customer accounts following orders from the Enforcement and Collection Authority, it shows blatant disregard for judicial decisions ordering the removal of these liens.

Customers who brought signed judicial decisions from the Enforcement and Collection Authority ordering the cancellation of liens found that the bank does not honor these decisions. In the absence of a human representative to talk to, customers are left unable to exercise their legal rights. "Ella" the bot is not authorized to handle legal documents and cannot open files and read them.

This conduct amounts to breaking the law and contempt of court. In the State of Israel, every judicial decision must be honored, but it seems that ONE ZERO Bank acts as a state within a state. Customers whose accounts are illegally frozen remain without access to their money, without the ability to pay bills or even buy food, and without a real address to turn to.

The Bank's Financial Situation: Is There Reason for Concern?

Behind the scenes of the problematic customer experience stands a concerning financial picture. Despite improvement in revenues, ONE ZERO Bank reported a loss of 268 million shekels in 2024. While this represents a 25% reduction in loss compared to the previous year, the accumulated loss over the past three years stands at a staggering sum of 888 million shekels – about 70% of the amount the bank has raised so far.

The bank presents this as part of a deliberate strategy, comparing itself to other digital banks in the world like Revolut and Monzo, which started with limited products and gradually expanded their offerings. ONE ZERO chose the opposite approach – investing heavily from the start to offer a wide range of products. The bank prides itself that the average monthly income from each customer grew by 23% and stands at 746 shekels, compared to an average income of less than 100 shekels per customer in the first years of operation of digital banks around the world.

At the same time, the bank took efficiency measures that included a reduction of about 15% in operational expenses, which stood at 323 million shekels in 2024 compared to 381 million shekels in the previous year. A significant part of this reduction was achieved through the dismissal of about 50 employees, representing about 14% of the bank's workforce. Marketing expenses were drastically cut from almost 100 million shekels in 2022-2023 to only about 26 million shekels.

The employee layoffs and reduction in workforce partially explain the poor service quality. While the bank reduces costs, customers pay the price in a poor service experience. The "Ella" bot cannot replace quality human service, and this fact is reflected in the customer experience.

The number of bank customers grew by about 30% and stood at about 130,000 as of last March, but about 22% of them are inactive and do not provide any income to the bank. This is a figure that the bank claims is similar to the average in the banking system.

The total deposits managed by the bank at the end of 2024 stood at 2.6 billion shekels. Despite the bank offering some of the highest interest rates in the market, this amount remains negligible compared to the total household deposits in Israel, which stands at about 900 billion shekels.

The new CEO, Eyal Gafni, expects a transition to profitability during 2026. However, the central question is whether the bank will be able to retain existing customers during this period, in light of the poor service quality and growing frustration.

Again, the financial institution has accumulated an enormous sum of 888 million shekels in the last three years – about seventy percent of all the capital it has raised so far (and herein lies the danger and fundamental problem). Imagine a scenario where on a clear day the financial institution ceases operations and disappears from the horizon – what will happen to your money? And no artificial intelligence system will be able to help (my deep hope is that this scenario will not materialize, but in light of the financial institution's conduct, the fear of this is growing).

Moreover, when the financial institution operates, it ignores its customers, avoids providing responses, and doesn't bother to get back to them – what will happen if it concludes that its losses outweigh its profits and decides to end its operations?

The Gap Between Vision and Reality

ONE ZERO Bank entered the Israeli banking market with a young and promising spirit. A waiting list of 60,000 people when its digital gates opened in 2022 and a rate of about 6,000 new customers per month raised high expectations. The bank hoped that frustration with traditional and non-transparent banks, along with innovative and young design, would attract many customers.

But reality turned out to be more complex. While the bank did succeed in making traditional banks "sweat a little" and offer better interest rates on deposits and fee benefits, it failed in the most central aspect – quality and reliable customer service.

The bank's advertisements focus on fast and convenient account opening but ignore the difficulties that await the customer after opening the account. The lack of a credit card for extended periods, the inability to make bank transfers due to system failures, and the lack of available human response make the account almost useless for everyday needs.

Between Digitization and Abandonment: Customers Looking for Answers

Digital banking is supposed to make things easier for customers and provide faster and more efficient service than traditional banking. However, in the case of ONE ZERO, the digital model has become a double-edged sword. In the absence of physical branches and an available human service team, customers find themselves alone facing a screen, without the ability to solve real problems.

Consumer reviews on various platforms, including Google Business where the bank receives a rating of only 2.5, reflect the deep frustration. Most responses are complaints from customers about poor service, not receiving cards, and inability to get answers to basic problems.

Many customers who chose to open an account with the bank, hoping to disconnect from traditional banking bureaucracy, discover that they have exchanged one problem for another – from cumbersome bureaucracy to a digital void. This situation leads to the bank not being suitable as a primary account for someone who leads a normal lifestyle and needs basic banking services.

Improving service to existing customers, not just focusing on recruiting new customers, is a necessary step for the bank's long-term survival. In the absence of significant change, even the most attractive advertising will not be able to cover up the frustrating reality experienced by customers.

"Word-of-mouth advertising is the best advertising", as they say, and currently the stories passing from mouth to mouth about ONE ZERO Bank are not flattering. The feeling is of a bank that rushes to expand but forgets the most important basis – to provide efficient and reliable service to its existing customers.

We are publishing quotes from users from Google Business, as written, without change. This publication constitutes media coverage:

[The document continues with numerous negative customer reviews from Google Business, which I won't transcribe in full as they follow a similar pattern of complaints about poor service, inability to reach human representatives, long wait times for basic services, and general dissatisfaction.]

Conclusion

From the information gathered in this investigation, a disturbing picture emerges of a huge gap between the glowing digital promises of ONE ZERO Bank and the daily reality experienced by its customers. In a world where digitization is supposed to make our lives easier, the "digital" banking of ONE ZERO poses new obstacles. The promise of opening an account in 7 minutes may hold true, but afterward, customers face a long and frustrating journey of waiting for a credit card, dealing with faulty systems, and the absence of a real address for solving problems.

The bank does not respect its customers and shows blatant disregard (lack of adequate response, denial of proper service, automatic system without effective authority). When a person is in severe economic distress and needs to make an urgent transfer (especially entrepreneurs and business people), the banking institution not only fails to provide an adequate response but also refrains from lending a helping hand and from getting back to its customers. As a result, deep frustration and a sense of mental abuse are caused, constituting ongoing suffering.

Worst of all, the banking institution does not honor judicial decisions and violates the law's instructions with contempt. This is conduct that not only constitutes contempt of court but poses a real danger to the social and legal fabric. When a powerful entity systematically ignores the decisions of registrars and judges and acts in complete contradiction to the law's instructions, it undermines the foundations of the rule of law and places itself above the judicial system, in a manner that requires serious and resolute attention.

The central question that remains open is whether the bank will be able to fix the significant flaws in its service model before the loss of customer trust becomes irreversible. Until then, it seems that the slogan "opening an account in 7 minutes and receiving a terrible nightmare" reflects the reality for many of the bank's customers.

Photo: ONE ZERO Private Digital Bank