When Clare Gambardella joined Zopa in 2018, the business was at a pivotal moment in its relatively short history.聽
The now-unicorn was in the process of moving from a peer-to-peer lending platform into a fully regulated digital bank.
Gambardella had joined as chief customer officer (CCO) from Virgin Active, where she had spent nearly five years and worked her way up to CMO.聽
Zopa describes itself as combining the reliability of a high street bank with the ease of app-based banking.
In September the digital bank revealed its plans to build a 500-strong workforce in Manchester after opening an office in the city.
In 2021 the digital bank achieved unicorn status when a 拢220m funding round pushed its valuation beyond $1bn.
Explaining her own role in Zopa’s success, Gambardella says: 鈥淚鈥檝e always moved sectors every time I鈥檝e moved jobs.
鈥淚 started in FMCG, then consulting, then health and fitness, and now finance.聽
鈥淚 really like that, because I like to take on new challenges.聽
鈥淭he benefit of moving into FinTech from outside is that you come with a really fresh perspective.
鈥淵ou think about what the customer needs are and how you can meet that, rather than having a set way of how things are done in the industry.鈥�
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Zopa’s shift to banking in 2020 marked a turning point in the company’s fortunes.
In the space of three years, the London-based FinTech has gone from being loss-making to turning a pre-tax profit of 拢34.2m in 2024.聽
鈥淚t was definitely a real learning curve when I joined,鈥� Gambardella tells 老九品茶Cloud at Lisbon’s Web Summit.聽
鈥淏ut I was lucky enough to go through that point where Zopa was also developing and changing a lot.聽
鈥淥bviously, going from peer-to-peer into being a fully regulated bank was a really interesting time and a really interesting journey.鈥�
From loss-making to market leader
As CCO, Gambardella鈥檚 remit spans marketing, product design, the Zopa app and now consumer AI.聽
She says: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a few different areas to my role that in some way I would hope contribute to that (increase in profit).聽
鈥淭he first one is obviously marketing – building our brand in a way that people can trust and feel at home with.聽
鈥淭he second thing is our app, which is the key interaction portal for customers.鈥�
The key skill that she has been able to develop for the team is helping the business not only acquire users, but keep them engaged.聽
鈥淥ne of the things we鈥檙e really proud of is that in the last year we鈥檝e doubled the products we鈥檝e sold to customers,鈥� she says.聽
鈥淭hat鈥檚 not only important from a profitability point of view, but it鈥檚 a great endorsement of customers wanting to do more with Zopa and having had a good experience with Zopa and wanting to come back.鈥�
Zopa now serves around 1.5 million customers, up from roughly 1.2m at the start of the year, and Gambardella says that momentum is showing no sign of slowing.聽
鈥淲e would love to see Zopa becoming the home of money for UK consumers,鈥� she says.聽
鈥淭hat means being able to deliver more value, more effortless experiences, and build deeper trust and relationships with customers.聽
鈥淚f we can do that for hopefully 5m customers over the next couple of years, that will feel like a really meaningful achievement.鈥�
Scaling smartly with AI
Part of Zopa鈥檚 growth strategy now hinges on how effectively it can deploy AI to enhance both customer experience and operational efficiency.聽
Gambardella says the company鈥檚 approach to AI is pragmatic and focused on where it creates measurable value, rather than just using it for the sake of it.聽
鈥淭he first way in which we use AI is for internal productivity,鈥� she explains.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got about 500 custom GPTs to basically help us go to market faster and be more efficient.
鈥淭he second area is operational AI – things like our operations chatbot. At the moment, all of our chats now run initially through AI.聽
鈥淲e see around 12,000 chats a week, and the customer satisfaction on those is around 10% higher than average, because we can triage them a lot faster.
鈥淥ur consumer AI assistant focuses on making payments faster with your voice – to yourself, to others, and via any bank account that you link. It鈥檚 all about speed and ease.鈥�
However, she is also wary that customers feel comfortable with the human element when looking for a service.聽
She continues: 鈥淎round 60 per cent of UK consumers are using AI, but only around 30 per cent would say they would trust a bank that is run off AI predominantly,鈥� she says.聽
鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to combine AI with humans. Our operations team handles complex matters the chatbot can鈥檛 resolve – things like fraud or vulnerability – where empathy is vital.鈥�
Building sustainable growth
With Zopa鈥檚 profitability and customer base both growing rapidly, Gambardella says maintaining balance between innovation and stability is key.聽
鈥淲e believe that creating a sustainable business for both customers and investors is really important,鈥� she says.聽鈥淎nd I guess we鈥檒l see where that ends up.鈥�
The company鈥檚 long-term plans include a recent major expansion into Manchester and building on September’s acquisition of Rvvup to transform its retail finance offering.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been an exciting time for all of us,鈥� she says.聽
鈥淲e鈥檙e in the very early stages of that acquisition. It has made our retail banking and POS offering much, much stronger.鈥�
Workforce of the future
Zopa鈥檚 growth story is as much about resilience as it is revenue.
Amid the AI boom, which has the potential to reshape industries, Gambardella is leading initiatives that prepare people for what comes next.
鈥淲e have a bit of a history of creating cross-industry ESG campaigns,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e initiated the 2025 FinTech Pledge in 2022, which delivered 25m actions to transform customers鈥� financial resilience.聽
鈥淪o our next focus is Jobs 2030 – re-skilling 100,000 financial and tech workers in AI.鈥�
The campaign stems from research with Juniper Research, which found that the financial services industry will invest 拢1.8bn in AI by 2030.聽
鈥淭here will be productivity increases and cost savings, but there will also be a huge shift in the type of skills workers need,鈥� Gambardella says.聽
鈥淲e believe that for FinTech to be successful, we really need to be creating the workforce of the future.鈥�
Zopa is now taking the AI training it developed internally and making it available externally through industry partnerships.聽
鈥淲e have our first major partner to announce quite soon,鈥� she adds.聽
鈥淭he idea is to lead a reskilling effort across the industry and make sure people get the skills they need to work in the future environment.鈥�