By Brazil Stock Guide — Brazilian fintech PicPay is closing in on Santander Brasil in the race for customers, highlighting the growing competitive pressure digital financial platforms are placing on the country’s established banks.
Data from the Central Bank of Brazil for the third quarter of 2026 show that PicPay reached 72.19 million customers, just 730,000 short of Santander’s 72.92 million. At the end of the first quarter, the gap between the two institutions stood at approximately 2.8 million.
The narrowing gap comes three months after Mercado Pago, the financial services arm of Latin American e-commerce giant Mercado Livre, overtook Santander to become Brazil’s sixth-largest financial institution by customer count. PicPay is now approaching a similar milestone.
Between the second and third quarters, PicPay expanded its customer base by 2.27%, adding approximately 1.60 million customers. Santander, by comparison, recorded growth of just 0.84%, equivalent to roughly 609,000 additional customer records.
Among the country’s largest financial institutions, CloudWalk, the Brazilian fintech behind the InfinitePay payments platform, recorded the strongest percentage growth. Its customer base jumped from 20.49 million to 22.61 million, an increase of 10.34% in a single quarter.
In absolute terms, CloudWalk added approximately 2.12 million customers, the third-largest increase among Brazil’s 15 biggest financial institutions, behind only Mercado Pago and Nubank.
Another shift occurred further down the rankings. Neon, a Brazilian digital financial services provider, reached 27.85 million customers, overtaking the financial conglomerate comprising investment bank BTG Pactual and Banco Pan, which ended the period with 27.77 million.
Neon added approximately 501,000 customers during the quarter, while the BTG Pactual/Banco Pan group recorded a slight decline. The gap between the two institutions now stands at roughly 80,000 customers.
Not every digital financial platform maintained its growth momentum, however. PagBank, part of the PagSeguro group, saw its customer base decline by approximately 432,000, falling from 34.07 million to 33.63 million, a quarterly contraction of 1.27%.
The decline contrasts with continued customer gains at other digital financial institutions, including C6 Bank, Inter and 99Pay.
Caixa Remains Brazil’s Largest Financial Institution
At the top of the rankings, state-owned Caixa Econômica Federal retained its position as Brazil’s largest financial institution by customer count, with 160.91 million customers.
Nubank remained in second place with 119.58 million, followed by Bradesco, Brazil’s second-largest private-sector bank by this measure, with 110.65 million.
Itaú Unibanco and Banco do Brasil completed the top five.
Among the major traditional banks, Banco do Brasil posted the largest absolute customer gain during the quarter, adding approximately 990,000 customers.
The figures come from the Central Bank’s quarterly customer database, which combines information from the Cadastro de Clientes do Sistema Financeiro Nacional (CCS), the financial system’s customer relationship registry, and the Sistema de Informações de Crédito (SCR), Brazil’s credit information system.
The combined database includes individuals and businesses with registered financial relationships. It does not necessarily reflect active customers or frequent users, and the same individual may have relationships with multiple institutions.
Nor do customer totals alone indicate profitability, lending market share or deposit volumes. Traditional banks generally maintain broader financial relationships with their customers, while digital platforms often rely on large user bases built around payments and other relatively low-friction financial services. The distinction is important when comparing institutions with substantially different business models.
The third-quarter figures nevertheless show that the competition for customer scale remains intense. With Mercado Pago already firmly ahead of Santander, PicPay is approaching the same milestone, while CloudWalk and Neon continue to gain ground further down the rankings. Brazil’s banking landscape is increasingly being shaped not only by traditional lenders and established digital banks, but also by technology-driven platforms whose expanding customer bases are giving them a larger presence in the country’s financial system.
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