The firm added 5.3 million customers during the third quarter
It’s now Latin America’s most valuable financial institution
Nu Holdings Ltd. posted a third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as the digital bank accelerated deposits and its lending business in Latin America.
Shares of Nu, however, dropped 3.13% to $15.15 in overnight trading. The stock had surged 88% this year through the close of regular trading.
Net income for the three months ended Sept. 30 more than doubled from a year earlier to $553.4 million, the Sao Paulo-based company said Wednesday in a statement. That surpassed the $495 million average estimate by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Return on equity was a record 30%, also beating expectations, while revenue totaled $2.9 billion.
Nu, which operates in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, added 5.3 million customers in the quarter, boosting its total at the end of September to almost 110 million. Deposits surged 60% to $28.3 billion.
“Our expansion into Mexico and Colombia continues to generate impressive results, with nearly 9 million customers in Mexico and over 2 million in Colombia,” founder and Chief Executive Officer David Vélez said in the statement. “We are preparing ourselves to consolidate Nu as the world’s leading digital services platform, going beyond financial services.”
Earlier this year, Nu eclipsed Brazil’s Itau Unibanco Holding SA as Latin America’s most valuable financial institution, with a market value of about $75 billion at the close Wednesday.
The fintech’s credit portfolio rose to $20.9 billion, with its share of personal loans again growing at a faster pace than credit cards.
Loans 15 to 90 days overdue fell 10 basis points to 4.4% while those delinquent more than 90 days rose 20 basis points to 7.2%. While some Wall Street analysts have flagged rising non-performing loans as a concern, Chief Financial Officer Guilherme Lago said the figures were within expectations.
The 15-to-90 day figures are “a much better representation of the asset quality of the book that we have,” Lago said in an interview.
International Expansion
Provisions for loan losses rose 6% to $774.1 million in the third quarter, after declining in the preceding three-month period. Nu recorded a one-time expense of $48 million associated with changes to its Nucoin program in Brazil.
In Brazil, Nu’s higher-income category, Ultraviolet, doubled in terms of customers and purchase volume in the past six months, while the number of small and mid-size business clients increases 40% from a year earlier, Lago said.
Deposit rose to $4 billion in Mexico, the most promising growth market for Nu and other Latin America fintechs. The bank is “way ahead of expectations” in international operations, he said.
The opportunity for the company to grow in new areas such as telecom, retail and travel services are immense, Velez said in a conference call with analysts. “We’re just getting started.”
