Nu Holdings Ltd. reports Q2 2026 financial results: the digital-only bank now serves 139 million customers and its quarterly net income surpassed $1 billion for the first time
Four years ago Nubank had 65M customers, earned $8 per active customer a month, and lost money. Today: 139M customers. $17 per customer. Quarterly revenue went from $1.2bn to $5.9bn. Net Income reached $1.1 billion for the first time in Nubank’s history, up 17% QoQ and 49% YoY. ROE closed the quarter at 33%.
Nu Holdings Ltd., the largest digital bank in Latin America, released its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026, prepared in accordance with IFRS, as well as complementary managerial results.
“Thirteen years ago we started with a simple hypothesis: that a bank built on technology, with no branches and no legacy to defend, could serve hundreds of millions of people better, and at a fraction of the cost. This is no longer a hypothesis, and we are now generating more than a billion dollars in quarterly net income. Earlier this month, we launched our bank in Mexico, becoming the largest digital bank in the country with 16 million customers. That completes our transformation there, unlocking capabilities we did not have before. In Brazil, we are evolving our structure, adding a full banking license to our operations. We also launched Croma for our Super Core customers, taking the same primary banking playbook upmarket into an even larger profit pool. Underpinning all of it, NuFormer, our foundation model for financial behavior, now powers underwriting, customer service, and growth decisions across the company,” says David Vélez, founder and global CEO of Nubank.
Q2’26 Results Snapshot
Operating Highlights:
Customer growth – Nu added approximately 4 million customers in Q2’26, reaching a total of 139 million customers globally. In Brazil, Nu reached almost 118 million customers. In Mexico, Nu reached 15.8 million customers (and 16 million as of July, 2026), and in Colombia, Nu surpassed 5 million customers, continuing its steady pace of net additions.
Engagement and activity rates – ARPAC reached approximately $17 in Q2’26, growing sequentially quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) once again. Monthly activity rate expanded sequentially to 83.5%, with Brazil surpassing 86% for the first time.
Efficiency Ratio – Efficiency Ratio increased to 19.5% in Q2’26 from 17.6% in Q1’26 (21.3% in Q2’25), as real estate and marketing expenses shifted from the first quarter into the second, alongside our continued investments in international expansion.
Asset Quality – Leading indicator 15-90 NPL ratio improved 16 bps to 4.8% in Q2’26, with the majority of the improvement coming from seasonality, partially offset by intentional expansions into higher-risk, higher-return segments. Product mix and other minor effects were broadly neutral. 90+ NPLs increased 35 bps to 6.9%, largely reflecting the seasonal migration of first-quarter early delinquencies.
Financial Highlights:
Revenue, Net Interest Income (NII) and Risk-adjusted NIM – Nu’s Q2’26 gross revenue reached nearly $5.9 billion, up 39% YoY. NII reached $3.7 billion, up 9% QoQ, and Net Interest Margin expanded 180 bps to 22.9%, reflecting portfolio growth, the mix shift toward unsecured lending, and the intentional risk expansions communicated last quarter. Cost of Credit declined 9% QoQ to $1.7 billion, largely reflecting the normal second-quarter improvement in early delinquencies. As a result, Risk-adjusted NIM expanded 290 bps to 12.4%, from 9.5% in Q1’26.
Profitability – Gross profit reached $2.4 billion, up 43% YoY and 25% QoQ. Credit’s contribution to gross profit rose to 41% as it normalized in line with its expected seasonal pattern, with fees at 25% and float at 34% — all three growing in absolute dollars. Net Income reached $1.1 billion for the first time in Nubank’s history, up 17% QoQ and 49% YoY. ROE closed the quarter at 33%.
Balance Sheet and Funding – Total credit portfolio expanded 37% YoY and 5% QoQ to $39.4 billion, with credit cards at $26 billion, unsecured lending at $10.3 billion, and secured lending at $3.1 billion. Total deposits reached $45.3 billion, up 18% YoY and 6% QoQ, recovering Q1’s seasonal outflows. Brazil closed at $36.4 billion, Mexico at $5.7 billion, and Colombia at $3.3 billion. In Mexico, deposits declined modestly again this quarter as part of a deliberate deposit-optimization strategy, improving cost of funding while maintaining ample liquidity, with Mexico’s loan-to-deposit ratio at just 35%. Consolidated cost of deposits held at 88% of interbank rates, 3 p.p. lower than a year ago.
Business highlights:
Deepening and Broadening Leadership in Brazil: Nu reached almost 118 million customers in Brazil, with the monthly activity rate surpassing 86% for the first time. Nu already serves most of the Mass Market segment and is the primary bank for a high share of those customers. It is also moving upmarket, where Ultravioleta continues to deepen primary banking relationships in the High Income segment. In July, Nu launched Croma for Super Core customers, offering a dedicated experience, enhanced credit, and broader benefits designed to reward customers for concentrating more of their financial lives with Nu. Beyond consumers, Nu serves more small businesses than any other financial institution in Brazil.
Becoming Mexico’s Largest Digital Bank: With its August launch, Nu became Mexico’s largest digital bank, completing its shift from a credit-first fintech to a full-scale institution. Customer behavior, technology, and regulation are now all moving in the same direction: SPEI transfers below $5 grew more than 60% in the first half, while new central bank rules introduced in June, mandatory for all institutions by year-end, will standardize the payment experience across rails and strengthen network effects. Nu reaches 16.5% of Mexico’s adult population, comparable to Brazil in 2020, but cohorts monetize earlier, with ARPAC of $12.3 against $5.6 in Brazil at the same stage. Taken together, these forces create one of the most compelling opportunities Nu has seen in Mexico.
Scaling NuFormer and Broadening AI Across the Business: Nu continues to advance NuFormer, its foundation model for financial behavior, building on one of its greatest advantages: over a decade of transaction history across more than 100 million customers. The latest generation quadrupled context length, training speed, and inference speed, while reducing the cost of running models in production. NuFormer is in production across three portfolios — credit cards in Brazil and Mexico, and unsecured lending in Brazil — with SME and Colombian cards now in testing. Beyond underwriting, AI agents handle more than 60% of customer support conversations in Brazil at or above human parity, and Nu is using AI to optimize decisions across credit, deposits, and growth.
NuFormer is a transformer trained on more than a decade of first-party transaction history. It already makes credit-card decisions in Brazil and Mexico and unsecured-loan decisions in Brazil. Nu says the model reduced predicted risk by 70% for an equivalent population, distinguishing between customers who look identical to a traditional bureau but behave differently in Nu’s own data. Credit risk remains, with 90+ day NPLs rising to 6.9% in Q2.
Credit as a Superpower, Underpinned by Customer Primacy: Nu leads the Brazilian market in Primary Banking Relationships (PBR), and that leadership, combined with the analytical rigor of its underwriting models and the quality of the data those relationships generate, creates a structural credit edge. Credit performance has been steady across every income band, with 90+ delinquency improving in each since July 2025 while the peer bank segments deteriorated, and the widest differentiation in Mass Market and Super Core. Customers with Nu as their PBR show delinquency roughly half the portfolio average, reinforcing that customer primacy is both a growth and a credit advantage.
John M. Zazzera Executive Advisor, Global Panel Pulse | TradFi–Digital Assets & Payments at McKinsey & Company, commented: „Nubank treats AI as an operating system, not a pilot. 19.5% efficiency at 139M customers is operating model discipline: unit economics, a data flywheel, and underwriting that compounds.”
He continued: „NuFormer is the point-first-party history for credit decisions, not chatbots. Bureaus flatten people who look the same; behavioral signal is where risk selection and ROE separate. Most large banks still celebrate 15% ROE and incremental efficiency. The hard part is rarely the model. It’s governance, adoption, process redesign, and controls so AI can run in production without breaking trust, auditability, or capital discipline.”
