Zopa | scaling a digital bank in the UK’s fintech ecosystem

Zopa is a British digital bank pioneer with almost two million customers. With products across borrowing, saving and everyday banking, it aims to redefine banking by creating the Home of Money – a bank that makes customers feel at home with their finances.  

Zopa has also launched Jobs 2030, a banking and fintech industry coalition that will upskill 100,000 banking workers in AI disciplines by 2030. 

We spoke to Zopa Bank’s Chief Customer Officer, Clare Gambardella, about the bank’s growth and success in the UK, and what it hopes to achieve through Jobs 2030. 

Your CEO, Jaidev Janardana, has said that London uniquely combines access to capital, global talent and international connectivity. What does this mean, day‑to‑day for Zopa and how you run the business and grow? 

The UK, and London in particular, has been fundamental to Zopa’s journey from peer-to-peer lender to fully licensed digital bank.  

Day to day, this translates into three things for Zopa. First, access to a highly skilled and diverse talent pool that enables us to build a technology-led bank with deep banking expertise. Second, we have proximity to investors and capital markets that understand regulated, high-growth businesses, supporting our continued investment in innovation and growth. Third, the thriving, well-networked community of international finance and technology companies in the city creates a hub for idea generation and collaboration. 

This combination of talent, capital and international connectivity has enabled Zopa to innovate at pace while maintaining a disciplined focus on profitability and customer outcomes. 

How has the UK’s financial services ecosystem supported Zopa’s ability to innovate and scale that innovation? 

The UK offers a supportive environment for financial services innovation, combining regulatory clarity, strong competition and an ecosystem that brings together incumbents, challengers and technology firms. 

For Zopa, this has been critical. UK’s regulatory framework initiatives like open banking now support over 17 million active connections and are part of everyday financial activity. This has enabled responsible innovation and given customers greater control over their financial data, while maintaining strong consumer protections. At the same time, a highly competitive market continues to push firms to improve customer value and experience. 

The ecosystem also provides access to investors and policymakers who recognise the importance of supporting growth in regulated businesses and are continuing to evolve their approach to enable innovation.  

For example, Zopa was selected as part of the first cohort for the Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority’s joint Scale-up Unit, which provides tailored regulatory support to high-growth firms as they develop new products, attract customers and expand into new markets. 

However, most critical to success is the nature of UK customers. They have shown themselves to be very open to digital financial services and keen to actively seek out better value, convenience and choice. This mindset has driven the adoption and success of new propositions. 

Together, this environment has enabled Zopa to build and scale a multi-product digital bank, spanning lending, savings, everyday banking and investments, on a proprietary, technology-led platform. Our ability to combine customer-centric design, data-driven decisioning and AI-led innovation is underpinned by the strength of the UK ecosystem. 

Access to skilled talent is often cited as a deciding factor for where firms choose to locate. How has the UK talent pool helped Zopa build the capabilities it needs for the next phase of growth? 

Access to skilled talent has been a key enabler of Zopa’s growth. The UK offers a diverse and highly capable workforce, supported by leading universities and a strong international talent base. 

At Zopa, this has allowed us to build multidisciplinary teams across engineering, data science, product, risk and operations – all essential to delivering a modern digital bank. Our expansion into Manchester reflects this strength beyond London, tapping into regional tech ecosystems and broadening access to talent across the UK.  

This depth and diversity of skills is critical as we move into the next phase of growth, particularly as we scale AI capabilities, develop new products and continue to enhance our customer experience. 

The UK is sometimes described as having a uniquely collaborative financial services ecosystem, where challengers, incumbents, institutions, academia and workers can come together to tackle shared challenges. How does Zopa see that culture of collaboration as supporting innovation at scale.  

The UK’s financial services ecosystem is uniquely collaborative, bringing together challengers, incumbents, policymakers and educators to address shared challenges. 

We have seen this first-hand through initiatives like the 2025 Fintech Pledge, which we launched with ClearScore in 2022. Through the initiative, we brought together over 50 organisations to work together to improve UK consumers’ financial resilience through the cost-of-living crisis. This demonstrated the industry’s ability to work collectively at pace and scale.  

This collaborative mindset accelerates innovation, enabling ideas to move quickly from concept to real-world impact, and creates an environment where firms can tackle system-level challenges together, rather than in isolation. 

We’ve now started our next industry coalition, Jobs 2030, to bring the industry together to upskill 100,000 banking workers in AI disciplines by 2030. 

Jobs 2030 brings together companies and organisations in the banking and financial services industries around a shared goal. What does that say about the UK’s financial services ecosystem and its ability to collaborate at pace on bold, future‑focused solutions? 

Jobs 2030 reflects the UK’s ability to bring together competitors, educators and industry partners around a shared, future-focused goal. 

As generative AI reshapes financial services, the industry faces both opportunity and disruption. We partnered with Juniper Research to conduct research on AI’s expected impact on UK financial services. Through this, we found that around 27,000 banking roles are at risk of significant change by 2030, primarily impacting employees at high street banks with large retail footprints.     

While that is an unsettlingly high figure, UK companies also have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to upskill thousands of industry workers in AI disciplines. That’s what we created Jobs 2030 to do.  

It has been powerful to see the industry’s openness to join the initiative and collaborate on solutions that support the long-term health of the industry and workforce. The City of London Corporation joined the inaugural group of Jobs 2030 members as part of the launch of the coalition’s 2026 Applied GenAI training curriculum for financial services firms. 

Find out more or see how your company can get involved.

What does Jobs 2030 say about the role the UK can play globally in shaping how financial services adapts to AI? 

Jobs 2030 highlights the UK’s potential to play a leading role in shaping how financial services adapts to AI – not just through technology adoption, but through responsible innovation and workforce transformation. 

The UK is already establishing itself as a global hub for AI. A growing number of technology companies are choosing to invest in and expand their presence here, supported by increasing government focus and funding. The UK’s approach to AI regulation is also emerging as a pragmatic middle ground between the US’s market-led model and the EU’s more prescriptive framework, helping to balance innovation with accountability. Initiatives such as the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, the appointment of a dedicated AI Minister, and the development of an AI taskforce within government reflect a clear intent to lead globally. They also create an environment where businesses can experiment, collaborate and scale new capabilities with confidence. 

At the same time, the scale of change is significant. Our study with Juniper Research found UK banks are expected to invest over £1.8 billion in generative AI by 2030. This investment will drive major productivity gains, while also reshaping roles across the industry, making it essential that the workforce evolves alongside the technology. 

Jobs 2030 positions the UK financial services industry not just as a leader in adopting AI, but as one that is setting the standard for how to do so responsibly and at scale, with a focus on inclusion and long-term workforce resilience.  

The campaign itself, which combines industry collaboration, targeted upskilling and practical, role-based training, has clear potential beyond financial services. As AI reshapes the wider economy, similar approaches could be applied in sectors such as education and healthcare, where workforce transformation will be just as critical. By aligning employers, educators and policymakers around shared upskilling goals, the UK has an opportunity to ensure that technological progress translates into broad-based economic and societal benefit. 

Looking ahead to 2030, how do initiatives like Jobs 2030 strengthen the UK’s proposition as a long‑term home for ambitious financial services firms — and what would you say to international companies considering the UK as their base? 

Initiatives like Jobs 2030 reinforce the UK’s position as a long-term home for ambitious financial services firms by demonstrating leadership, stability and a commitment to future-proofing the industry. 

They show that the UK is not only a place where firms can grow, but also where systemic challenges, such as workforce transformation, are addressed collaboratively and at scale. 

For international companies, this offers confidence: a market with strong fundamentals, a supportive regulatory environment, and an ecosystem that actively works to sustain long-term growth and innovation. 

In one sentence, what makes the UK a uniquely powerful place to build the future of financial services? 

The UK delivers unparalleled access to the core ingredients for growth within a regulatory system in which financial services innovation can scale responsibly and sustainably. 

Clare Zambardella, 
Chief Customer Officer, Zopa Bank