Yaeli Darschevitz Tamary | ONE ZERO | How Do You Build a Digital Bank?
Host: Eyal David · Guest: Yaeli Darschevitz Tamary · About the host
Yaeli Darschevitz Tamary, Chief Product and Delivery Officer at ONE ZERO, was one of the first employees at the digital bank built from scratch in 15 months of development, the first new bank founded in Israel in 43 years. In her view, the biggest challenge in banking isn't technology but customer trust, which is why ONE ZERO built a fee-free subscription model, joint squads of product managers and bankers, and a 60-day customer journey where open banking gives customers value in their very first minutes.
In this episode
- In banking the big challenge is trust, not technology: even when the bank alerts customers that they're overdrawn at another bank, they ask what's in it for the bank. ONE ZERO builds trust through constant transparency and a subscription model that removes the conflict of interest.
- In a complex domain, pair a product manager with a business expert: at ONE ZERO every project and domain is run by a mini squad of a business owner and a product manager, where one learns the regulation and the other learns sprints and prioritization.
- Deliver value before the customer deposits a shekel: in the 60-day Newborn journey, connecting open banking brings 12 months of history from the other bank and makes it possible to show insights and a full financial picture in the first minutes.
- A group of first users shapes both the product and the marketing: the 1,000 founders, friends and family, got the app before launch, and from what they explained to their own friends the team learned what worries customers and what needs answering.
- An incentive that fits the target audience shortens activation: a promotion that offered the trading package for free cut account activation from about 30 days to five or six days among the customers the bank wants most.
- What Yaeli looks for in product managers: seriousness (how you do anything is how you do everything), creativity that finds solutions between conflicting interests and regulation, and genuine passion for the product that can't be faked in an interview.
Listen to this episode
Episode Description
Yaeli Darschevitz Tamary, Chief Product and Delivery Officer at ONE ZERO, explains how you set up a digital bank from scratch: a team of about 20 people, bankers alongside product and tech people, and 15 months of development to launch. She describes the vision of private banking for the masses, the subscription model designed to break the conflict of interest between bank and customer, and the mini squads of a business owner and a product manager who learn from each other. The conversation covers the club of the first 1,000 founders who gave feedback before launch, the 60-day Newborn customer journey, using open banking to deliver insights in the first minutes, and living with heavy regulation that can stall several sprints. Yaeli also shares her own path, from the family business through Payoneer to ONE ZERO, and what she looks for when interviewing product managers: seriousness, creativity and genuine passion for the product.
Chapters
- 0:00 · Intro: what ONE ZERO is and how you set up a bank
- 2:48 · Bankers and product people: joint mini squads
- 4:14 · Private banking for the masses and the subscription model
- 8:30 · The big insight: customer trust is hard to earn
- 15:35 · Product manager skills: seriousness and creativity
- 21:01 · Regulation and discovery at a bank that's also a fintech
- 23:35 · Feature-level measurement: the Store, an AI feed and KPIs
- 26:01 · The Newborn customer journey and open banking
- 28:47 · The 1,000 founders club and the launch
- 36:12 · Yaeli's path: from the family business through Payoneer to ONE ZERO
Full transcript with speakers and timestamps
Selected quotes
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
“We have to tell the customer if they're in overdraft at the other bank, even if the other bank didn't tell them.”
“I came to build a bank for my family and my friends.”
Questions & answers
What is ONE ZERO?
ONE ZERO is an Israeli digital bank, a full bank regulated by the Bank of Israel, with no branches. It was built in 15 months of development and offers the basic banking products, such as deposits, loans, transfers and securities, on a subscription model with no per-transaction fees.
Why did ONE ZERO choose a subscription model?
To break the conflict of interest between the bank and the customer. Instead of charging a fee for every action, the customer pays a fixed amount, like Netflix, and uses the bank as much as they need. That lets the bank recommend what's genuinely good for the customer, even when it means sending revenue out of the bank.
What is ONE ZERO's Newborn customer journey?
The first 60 days after opening an account, during which the bank guides the customer through activating it: receiving the card, a first transaction, learning about benefits and plans, and above all connecting open banking, which lets the bank show insights about the customer's money at other banks too.
How do you do discovery at a bank that's also a fintech?
An initiative comes from a department, from management or from a product manager, and then the idea goes through all of the bank's divisions, including Compliance, Risk and Cyber, to check what may be shown to the customer under Bank of Israel rules. After the proposal is distilled there's an orderly kickoff, and from there the team runs like any product team.
What does Yaeli Darschevitz Tamary look for when interviewing product managers?
Three things: seriousness, meaning coming prepared and doing everything as well as possible; creativity that finds fast solutions between regulation and conflicting interests; and genuine passion for the product and the customer, which shows when a candidate talks about a feature they built.
People & resources mentioned
People
- Yaeli Darschevitz Tamary, Chief Product and Delivery Officer at ONE ZERO
- Amnon Shashua
- Ran Liron, UX lecturer at the Technion
Companies & orgs
- ONE ZERO
- Payoneer
- Bank of Israel
- Pepper
- Revolut
- N26
- Monzo
- Wix
- Amazon
- Airbnb
Tools
- monday.com
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Open banking
Related Episodes
Why You? How to Build a Story, Momentum and an Edge | Adi Levanon (Selah Ventures)
00:59:42 · August 10, 2026
Adi Levanon is the founder and sole general partner of Selah Ventures, a fund she launched in 2023 that writes first checks into fintech companies bui...
Gabi Broitman | Primer | The Money Leaking From Your Checkout, and How to Catch It
00:45:25 · April 28, 2026
Gabi Broitman, a payments expert and Senior BDM leading Primer's operation in Israel, explains why checkout is one of the most neglected parts of digi...
Netanel Mor | Papaya | We took the Bingo out of Bingo, and then it exploded
00:34:53 · April 27, 2026
Netanel Mor is Product Lead at Papaya, the skill-based games company behind Solitaire Cash, Bingo Cash and Bubble Cash, and was previously a product m...
Ronny Maate Keller | Vertice | How to Avoid Getting Stuck as a Feature Factory and Stay Strategic as a PM
00:46:14 · December 8, 2025
Ronny Maate Keller has spent 20 years in product: a developer who moved into product management at 888 (Random Logic), Payoneer's first VP Product, Cy...