Xapo Bank
Digital Private Banking | Lifestyle & Product Photography
Making digital
feel human.
Lifestyle and product photography for Xapo Bank, spanning 80 final assets across six locations in Gibraltar, with a smart-layer delivery system that allowed the client to update app screens long after the shoot.
The Brief
A digital private bank needed its product to feel real, immediate and human across every platform it appeared on.
Xapo Bank is a Gibraltar-based digital private bank offering premium financial services through a mobile app and physical card. The brief was a refresh of their existing website and marketing materials: authentic lifestyle imagery capturing real people using the Xapo app and card in everyday moments, from coffee shops and parks to offices and retail environments.
The imagery needed to integrate Xapo's brand palette of orange, red and brown naturally into each scene, align with their existing visual aesthetic and work across web, social and digital advertising. Specific post-production grading was required to ensure seamless consistency with the broader brand world across all platforms.
The shoot was commissioned through a production partner, with JCA brought in to lead creative direction, casting, production planning and photography.
The challenge with financial technology is making something invisible feel real. The app only exists on a phone. The phone only exists in a life.
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The Creative Approach
Authentic casting, considered lighting and a technical delivery system built for long-term campaign flexibility.
The casting approach was deliberate: a mixture of professional models and real people, chosen to give the imagery a range of authentic, relatable moments rather than the polished uniformity of a traditional product shoot. Each scenario was designed to show the Xapo card and app as a natural part of daily life, present without feeling intrusive.
Lighting was carefully balanced between flash and available daylight across every location, with shallow depth of field used to draw the viewer's eye towards the phone and app without the distraction of busy backgrounds. Managing natural reflections on the phone screen required precise attention on every setup. The reflections needed to feel real, not staged, while still allowing the screen content to remain clear and usable.
The Gibraltar headquarters had been extensively photographed before, leaving limited viable shooting areas. JCA approached the location with maximum variety in mind, using different angles, times of day, lighting setups and compositions to create breadth from the same spaces. Across two days, ten setups and six locations, 80 final assets were delivered, a volume that would typically require three to four days of production.
The post-production grading was calibrated specifically to Xapo's brand palette, ensuring the imagery integrated naturally with their existing visual world rather than sitting separately from it.
The WorkTwo days. Six locations. Eighty final assets. A smart-layer delivery system built for long-term flexibility.
10
Setups across six locations in two days
80
Final assets delivered across social and digital
3
Layer smart system: reflection, smart layer, base image
Campaign Deliverables
Lifestyle Photography
Model and real-person lifestyle scenarios across coffee shop, park, office, retail and street locations
Product and app imagery
Close-detail and hand-held shots of the Xapo card and mobile app in use
Location coverage
Six locations across Gibraltar including Xapo headquarters, Costa Coffee, grocery shop, park, street and ATM
Post-production
Brand-calibrated grading aligned to Xapo's orange, red and brown palette across all 80 assets
Smart-layer delivery system
Every asset was delivered as a three-layer file: a base lifestyle image, a smart layer sized and shaped to the phone screen, and a top layer carrying the natural phone reflections.
To update any phone screen across the asset bank, Xapo could simply drop a new screenshot into the smart layer. The adjustments happened automatically, with no manual retouching required.
The OutcomeEighty assets. Three years of active use. A system the client could update themselves.
The imagery was used extensively across Xapo's web, social and digital advertising platforms throughout the full three-year usage period. The smart-layer system proved its value immediately, giving the client the ability to refresh phone screen content across the asset bank without returning to production.
The Gibraltar team responded strongly to both the imagery and the on-set experience, later expressing interest in a further film project with JCA around the history of the bank and its headquarters.
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