By Brazil Stock Guide – Nu Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NU) reported record net income of $1.1 billion for the second quarter of 2026, surpassing $1 billion for the first time as revenue and its global customer base expanded. Profit increased 49% from a year earlier and 17% from the previous quarter.
The digital bank’s gross revenue rose 39% year over year to about $5.9 billion. Its customer base reached 139 million across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia after the company added approximately 4 million users during the quarter.
Return on equity ended the period at 33%. Gross profit climbed 43% from a year earlier and 25% sequentially to $2.4 billion.
Interest income and margins
Net interest income rose 9% from the previous quarter to $3.7 billion. Net interest margin widened by 180 basis points to 22.9%, driven by loan growth, a shift toward unsecured lending and the company’s planned expansion into higher-risk, higher-return customer segments.
Credit costs declined 9% sequentially to $1.7 billion, mainly reflecting the seasonal improvement in early-stage delinquencies typically seen during the second quarter.
Risk-adjusted net interest margin increased to 12.4% from 9.5% in the first quarter.
Credit contributed 41% of gross profit, while fees accounted for 25% and income from float represented 34%. Nu said all three areas grew in absolute terms.
Customer base reaches 139 million
Nu’s average monthly revenue per active customer rose to about $17. The monthly activity rate increased to 83.5% globally and exceeded 86% in Brazil for the first time.
The company ended the quarter with almost 118 million customers in Brazil. Nu said it already serves most of the country’s mass-market segment and is the primary bank for a significant share of those customers.
The lender is also seeking to deepen its presence among higher-income consumers. Its Ultravioleta offering remains focused on affluent customers, while Croma, launched in July, targets so-called “super core” clients.
Croma offers dedicated service, expanded credit and additional benefits for customers who concentrate a greater portion of their financial activity with Nu.
The company also said it serves more small businesses than any other financial institution in Brazil, though it did not disclose the size of its business-client base.
Loan portfolio grows to $39.4 billion
Nu’s total loan portfolio expanded 37% from a year earlier and 5% from the previous quarter to $39.4 billion.
Credit-card loans accounted for $26 billion of the portfolio. Unsecured credit totaled approximately $10.3 billion, while secured lending reached $3.1 billion.
Deposits increased 18% year over year and 6% sequentially to $45.3 billion, recovering the seasonal outflows recorded in the first quarter.
Brazil accounted for $36.4 billion of total deposits, followed by Mexico with $5.7 billion and Colombia with $3.3 billion.
The consolidated cost of deposits remained at 88% of interbank rates, 3 percentage points below the level reported a year earlier.
Early-stage delinquencies improve
Nu’s 15-to-90-day nonperforming loan ratio declined by 16 basis points to 4.8%. The company attributed most of the improvement to seasonality, partially offset by its planned expansion into higher-risk and higher-return segments.
The ratio for loans overdue by more than 90 days increased by 35 basis points to 6.9%, mainly because early-stage delinquencies recorded in the first quarter moved into later delinquency categories.
Nu said delinquencies of more than 90 days had improved across all income groups since July 2025, while comparable segments at peer banks had deteriorated.
Customers who use Nu as their primary banking relationship have delinquency rates equivalent to about half the portfolio average, according to the company.
Mexico reaches 16 million customers
Nu had 15.8 million customers in Mexico at the end of the quarter and reached 16 million in July. Following the launch of its banking operation in August, the company said it became the country’s largest digital bank.
The move completed Nu’s transition in Mexico from a credit-focused fintech into a full financial institution. The company now serves 16.5% of the country’s adult population.
Average monthly revenue per active customer in Mexico reached $12.30. At the same stage of development in Brazil, the figure stood at $5.60.
Transfers of less than $5 through Mexico’s SPEI payment system increased more than 60% in the first half. Nu also highlighted central-bank rules introduced in June that are expected to standardize payment experiences across different infrastructures by the end of 2026.
Mexican deposits declined modestly for a second consecutive quarter as part of a funding-optimization strategy. Nu said the approach lowers financing costs while maintaining ample liquidity. The country’s loan-to-deposit ratio stood at 35%.
In Colombia, the customer base surpassed 5 million.
AI expands across credit and customer service
Nu continued to expand NuFormer, its foundation model for financial behavior. The technology draws on more than a decade of transaction history from over 100 million customers.
The latest version quadrupled context capacity and training and inference speeds while reducing the operating cost of models already in production.
NuFormer is being used for credit cards in Brazil and Mexico and for unsecured lending in Brazil. Applications for business customers and Colombian credit cards are being tested.
AI agents now handle more than 60% of customer-service conversations in Brazil, with performance that Nu said is equal to or better than that of human agents. The company also uses AI to support decisions involving credit, deposits and growth.
Vélez points to technology-led model
David Vélez, Nubank’s founder and global chief executive officer, said the result validated the business model the company began developing 13 years ago.
“Thirteen years ago, we started with a simple hypothesis: that a bank built on technology, with no physical branches and no legacy systems to preserve, could serve hundreds of millions of people better at a fraction of the cost. That is no longer a hypothesis, and we generate more than $1 billion in net income per quarter,” Vélez said.
The CEO also highlighted the group’s expansion in Mexico and Brazil and the increasing use of NuFormer across its operations.
“Earlier this month, we launched our bank in Mexico and became the country’s largest digital bank, with 16 million customers, completing our transformation and unlocking products and services that were previously unavailable,” Vélez said.
“In Brazil, we are evolving our structure and adding a banking license to our operations. We also launched Croma for our super core customers, taking our primary-bank strategy for higher-income segments to an even broader and more profitable market. Supporting all of this is NuFormer, our foundation model for financial behavior, which guides credit analysis, customer service and growth decisions across the company,” he added.
Efficiency ratio rises sequentially
Nu’s efficiency ratio increased to 19.5% from 17.6% in the first quarter. It remained below the 21.3% reported in the second quarter of 2025.
The sequential increase reflected real-estate and marketing expenses that shifted from the first quarter into the second, as well as continued investment in international expansion.
Unless otherwise indicated, Nu calculated the reported growth rates on a foreign-exchange-neutral basis.
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