- 8 minutes ago
Cristina Junqueira helped build Brazilian fintech player Nubank into one of the world’s largest digital financial services platforms.
Now, as she leads Nu’s emerging US business, she is taking on its biggest challenge yet: breaking into America’s crowded banking market.
As part of Business Insider’s The Long Play, Junqueira sat down with Dan DeFrancesco, executive editor and anchor of Business Insider Today, to share her insights on how to build trust and scale in banking, like leaning into convenience through digital banking products.
During this discussion, titled “Building a Global Challenger,” Junqueira also talks about her plan to take on incumbents in retail banking.
Now, as she leads Nu’s emerging US business, she is taking on its biggest challenge yet: breaking into America’s crowded banking market.
As part of Business Insider’s The Long Play, Junqueira sat down with Dan DeFrancesco, executive editor and anchor of Business Insider Today, to share her insights on how to build trust and scale in banking, like leaning into convenience through digital banking products.
During this discussion, titled “Building a Global Challenger,” Junqueira also talks about her plan to take on incumbents in retail banking.
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00:04yeah so good to see you yeah thanks so much um so I gave a little preview there
00:10but quick 30-second overview just give us the back story of of new bank you know
00:17basically you come in and take on these five massive banks in Brazil two of which
00:21are state-backed find incredible success give us about before you into the US
00:25plans give us the back story there of course so we're one of the largest
00:28companies you've never heard of for people in the room so we started about
00:3313 years ago myself David Velas who's our founder and CEO and Ed and we started
00:41out of Brazil with a purple credit card that had no fees and you could manage
00:46everything through our own app and that was when the word fintech hadn't been
00:51invented people didn't know what a unicorn was it was a very long time ago and we
00:56had this vision that data design technology could really transform
01:00people's relationship with money we're seeing technology disrupt so many
01:04industries entertainment you guys we're just talking about it on stage
01:08transportation like so many other industries we saw Netflix be born Amazon
01:13be born but financial services seem to stand still and no one would touch the
01:17sacred cows so so we started this company that no one really believed in we were
01:23told a lot of no's but a few years into this we are now the largest company in
01:30Brazil in terms of primary banking relationships we are two-thirds of all
01:35the adult population in Brazil is a customer we you've mentioned 140 million
01:40customers across Brazil Mexico and Colombia because we've already expanded
01:43internationally and a little over a month ago we launched here in the US
01:48hopefully to to start a to kick off a big transformation here too well I you're
01:52giving you're cutting yourself a little bit short because I remember I used to
01:55cover fintech I always get the reports and it was I used to call you guys and
01:58and the outliers because it'd be like these big huge bars as far as the funding
02:02rounds you guys would raise but yes you mentioned the US what you know like as you
02:07say you have such a successful domestic business what's the draw besides we're a
02:10massive market but we're also a very difficult market we could talk about a lot of
02:14people have have tried to blaze this trail and failed what is the big draw for
02:18you guys specifically about trying to break in in the US yeah we always saw the
02:22the thesis as a global one everywhere in the world people want more convenience
02:26people want more transparency people want simpler experiences managing their
02:32finances people still get like paralyzed by complexity through their
02:37financial lives and everywhere people want to pay less fees people want to be
02:42better cheated from you know customer support standpoint so we really believe
02:47that all those all those pain points and all those like angles would apply to the
02:51u.s. it is the largest opportunity in the world is the largest industry it is even a
02:58sliver of the u.s. market will represent doubling the company for us so when we
03:02started thinking about okay what will country number four look like we looked
03:07across the globe and we spent the better part of a year you know scouring
03:11through the data and sure the u.s. is a very hard market but I haven't found
03:15easy ones either you know they kind of build none of them really roll out the
03:18red carpet I suppose building a bank is hard every sure sure so you might as well
03:22go for the biggest payout right right so the reason why you know obviously the
03:27issue is so many foreign digital banks have tried this poor right so and 26 a
03:32German fintech very popular over there tries here fails Monzo you tech fintech tries
03:37here fails you know there's a bunch of others that have kind of dabbled or dip their
03:40toes bunk revolute starling this is you know there's a lot of fatalities along
03:44this path but it to put it lightly uh what did you learn I'm sure you did a
03:49bunch of autopsies on those what did you learn did anything stand out as far as
03:52what those banks maybe did wrong or what you specifically want to do to avoid a
03:57similar path that's a great question and during that year we did many autopsies
04:02of like some of those folks and also like studied the things that kind of are
04:06doing well because there are some fintechs here in the west are successful
04:10with the slightly different business model so there are a few learnings there
04:13I think especially from the foreigners coming into the west there was a lot of
04:17copy pasting of business models you know like people that didn't necessarily take
04:21enough time or put enough effort into really understanding the American
04:25consumer you know like the pain points and what you need to be successful here
04:29right like what they care about a lot of people just assume like just took it for
04:33granted they were like well we're pretty successful here we're in Europe like why
04:36wouldn't people there like like us we're a unique bunch here you are very
04:40different exactly like you know people have specific ways that they expect things
04:46to work or or ways that they have been trained to look at products in a
04:50specific way so we're being very mindful of that the other thing is like from a
04:53business model standpoint a lot of these companies the ones that you've
04:57mentioned and many others they they had a very specific angle for their
05:02business model like that most of them started with a debit account and with a
05:07debit card in an account and that requires you building a lot of trust
05:10with those customers because you're asking them to deposit their money with
05:13you in our case all the countries that we've started we started with credit which
05:18is a very different relationship because you're the one trusting the
05:20consumers like if if they don't like your product they won't pay you you know
05:24like you're the one taking your risk is sure so we are actually the first ones to try to do
05:30what we call like this everyday mobile banking category you know like that that
05:35is complete right like we have an account where you have like your checking
05:39account the savings account the debit card the credit card soon we're gonna
05:44have personal loans so like the basic toolkits you know for people to manage
05:48their everyday finances and we have a large customer base that is in and out of the
05:54u.s. and it's asking us for our products the other angle that none of those guys had was
06:00anywhere from half a million people all the way to maybe two or three million
06:03people depending on how slice the data asking them begging them to come to the
06:07u.s. there's a familiarity that you have already with these when when you think
06:11about how the u.s. consumer is so different anything really stand out and how are you
06:15specifically trying to lean to like you know just thought we love protein here protein
06:19backed you know debit cards I don't know what what really stood out like supersize
06:23cards what's the what's the way that you can really appeal to the American so
06:28great question I think one obvious a way is is all the all the rewards and like
06:33our benefits I know people are pretty sad on their points and their cashback so that
06:39was up when we started in Brazil Mexico and but none of our products had those types
06:44of rewards right so that was something that we absolutely knew that we had to
06:47bring here and we did but there are also other things that I think people are not
06:53necessarily paying a lot of attention to but once they see they can unsee you know
06:57so it is surprisingly hard still to get an account or to get a credit card in the
07:03u.s. like most of the institutions will force you to go through a branch to talk to
07:08somebody to wait in line like do you know they'll take several days like people
07:13out here in the u.s. like over the past 40 days since we've been live they're very
07:18much pleasantly surprised by the fact that in two or three minutes you were
07:21able to get an account get a credit card like all digitally yeah I know that's a
07:24big that was a big pitching point for you guys at new bank and now in the u.s.
07:29like you said early days any like interesting stories as far as like hearing
07:32back from people about using it early on I know again I know it's early on but so
07:36many it's qualitative now like right because you know there's very early for
07:41first to be able to quantify but I've been positively surprised not only by the
07:45amount of people sure like Brazilians Mexicans and Colombians are here and
07:48have been waiting for this and they're just so happy on our welcome kit we're
07:53sending people there's a letter that we hand-wrote like my David and I like you
07:57know to our customers and we signed and the first phrase it says we're so glad
08:02you're here like two customers right like we're so glad that you're trusting us and
08:05we're seeing so many people share that welcome kit which is a very very nice one
08:08by the way on social media say no no we are so glad that you're here thank you
08:13for coming so that has been wonderful to see but even Americans that started to
08:18enjoy the products and to give it a try they're saying oh my god like you know
08:22getting yield on every dollar on my account not having to worry about like
08:26putting my savings aside we do have savings goals that people can use like to
08:29for specific purposes but not having to carry the mental load of like oh did I
08:35move money into my savings account this month or like oh my god I'll need to get
08:38money from a save can I transact like will I be penalized if I do right so I
08:42think like just facilitating that process for people has been a true delighter so
08:47Peter and Barry were just talking about Expedia interacting with these AI agents
08:51and that's become a really hot topic in commercial in US banking on there's a
08:55couple reports about some US banks stopping AI agents you know I'm curious have you
09:01guys thought of or do you already have a policy as far as the AI agents
09:05interacting with your consumers bank yeah we're currently not ready to take
09:09agents but it's something that we're that we're contemplating and working on I
09:13think that's probably something that is gonna come for the industry it's tough
09:18because the rules aren't even written for that right like so there will likely be
09:22regulation on this there is a discussion liability which is fair but AI is
09:28coming yeah it's coming for everyone so we are a company that is leaning very
09:33heavily into AI David our CEO and founder he's on the board of open AI so we have
09:39been early adopters of many technologies like around the world we've acquired a
09:44couple of companies that were born in the AI era and we're heavily leveraging AI
09:48especially on the credit underwriting side which is one of our strengths but
09:54also for gaining a lot of efficiency on on customer support but with a very
09:59extremely high bar of quality sure and also a lot of productivity for product
10:05development so a lot of the features that were they were bringing to the US
10:08were born without any engineers touching the code was all AI written right you
10:13know well so so there's there's a lot that we're leveraging AI I know you're
10:16still deciding but do you view it potentially as a differentiator as you
10:20continue to grow in the US market if there are the more traditional banks that are
10:23like no you can kind of lean into like you want to use your agents like we'll
10:27welcome is that potentially like a pitch it could be it could be it's
10:30something that we're closely looking into it is a big opportunity because the
10:35reality is a lot of people are going to want to leverage those tools those
10:39agents for their own productivity and whoever is well positioned to capture that
10:42opportunity will will have an entry so it's been to say it lightly a big week in
10:48Brazil I guess you know um I I want to talk about what I want to get your
10:53thoughts on that but just in general I guess first you know there was a big
10:56reaction to the election because of the surprise I guess I'm sure I imagine you
11:01were surprised like everybody else but were you surprised by how big the market
11:05sell-off was as a result of that or did you think that if as much as you didn't
11:09expect this to happen if it did there would be a pretty sharp reaction there's a
11:12big sell-off across the board so listen markets don't like surprises right but
11:19we I mean we got to manage our business regardless of what happens sure and and
11:23we've been in Brazil for 13 years we've saw we've seen like different
11:27governments we've seen left-wing governments we've seen left right
11:31leaning governments and we've seen like big huge recessions like we started a
11:35company actually in 2013 in the worst recession that Brazil has ever seen when
11:39the GDP contracted 8% right in a year and then we saw pandemic so like you know
11:45volatility is what it is we are a public company so obviously like you know the
11:49stock is down whatever but we one of the commitments that we made to a board to
11:54tour employees or investors whom we hope to be long-term shareholders is that we
12:00wouldn't run the company for the short run like we would run for the right so
12:05these types of things are gonna happen when you're you know operating in a
12:08country like Brazil we've got to focus on the fundamentals and the reality is last
12:12quarter we printed over a billion dollars in net income right and we continue to
12:17grow and accelerate a pace we're running a business that has an ROE north of 30%
12:22we're now tapping to the largest opportunity in the world so we have a
12:25lot of reasons to be excited about well I was gonna ask is something like this
12:29week's election in the market reaction does that even solidify the work you're
12:32doing in the US because it diversifies your business right away from being kind of a
12:36one-stop shop sure like that helps for sure I think we've started diversifying
12:40away from Brazil when we went to Mexico we went to Colombia as well but sure like
12:43the US is a huge opportunity for us right last question on the US expansion so
12:49five years from now we sit down first you say doing the long play was the best
12:54decision I ever made and then after we move past that where is new banking in
12:59its in its US growth you mean in five years in five years I look at your crystal ball
13:03yeah I one of the things that I would love to do and I was talking to somebody
13:07yesterday about this there's a lot that we got to do to build a bank in the
13:11United States right like regulation super complex the technology behind it is
13:14super complex our operations are complex everything is complex but to a
13:19certain degree those are objective things that you got to build I keep
13:23telling people one of the hardest things that we're gonna have to do here is
13:26build a brand you know is to connect with people on an emotional level and we on
13:32the countries that we that we operated before we've always built a love brand
13:36like we we want our customers to love us like to really think and that's pretty
13:40weird when you think about the category they were at like financially people not
13:45about to love they don't even like the things like little love them but we're
13:48pretty loved and we we work really hard to earn that love so I would love to see
13:53evidence of that you know I would love for us to continue to grow our brand in a
13:57way that that that we're starting to see that evidence of customer love I heart
14:02knew maybe there's a branding yeah t-shirt idea there you go that one's for
14:05free um so you're pretty passionate about the company being very gender
14:09equal we wanted the general the most gender-equal tech company Latam 2021 you
14:13set a goal 50% news new bank's leadership to be women by 2025 where did you land on
14:18that goal where are you in your you know gender equality mission is it something
14:23that you're very passionate about at the bank yeah so I think obviously the fact
14:27that I've been there since the beginning has helped you're helping that 50% but
14:31the reality is that has been something that we've always stood out for so I think
14:38to this day I don't have the number top of my head but I think we're north of like
14:4145% of like women not just on a workforce but also leadership positions and and
14:47currently like here's a funny stat for you sure we operate in four countries so
14:51we have four country CEOs all our women right now at new bank right like on our
14:56executive committee maybe half of us are women or maybe a little more I got to do
15:01the math but like it has been wonderful for us to to have that type of
15:07opportunity for us to really be able to tap into this part of the workforce that
15:13often struggles to have that this type of career opportunity so it has it has
15:17brought a lot of a lot of innovation even for us yeah well four for four that's
15:21100% so you're definitely above I know that I know Sheryl Sandberg someone that
15:26you lucked up to a lot right and a lot about the lean-in movement right reshaping
15:31the conversation about women ambition so we actually spoke to her recently and she
15:35kind of mentioned she worries that there a lot of less women want that top top job
15:41and there's even this kind of mindset of like leaning out I guess you know from
15:44where you sit in an executive position what is currently making that path
15:49towards that top leadership less appealing for women do you think well
15:53what I can say from my personal experience as an executive and as a mom of
15:58four whole four children that were born like dude as I was building the company
16:03alongside with David it is such a tough thing to do you know to reconcile like
16:09building a family raising a family and and being like a you know a senior
16:14executive at a multinational company but the reality is as hard as we have to
16:21work I think the hardest part is not having enough flexibility you know I feel
16:26that a lot of women at least like the women that I know the people that I'm
16:30friends with like women that work at new bank like the work with us that's the
16:35hardest thing that I've often like heard about is not the long hours it's not the
16:39pressure it's actually the lack of flexibility because if you have a sick
16:42that a kid that is sick at home or if you have like a doctor's appointment that
16:46you need to go or if there's something at school just being able to have
16:49flexibility to be able to be there even if you're working later that night or like
16:54if you're compensating some other way like that will go such a long way you know so I
17:00think that's one of the main levers that companies there that care about this that
17:04they can lean into to no punishment to allow this workforce to continue to be
17:10what so what do they have to do is it more of just you know marketing the fact
17:13that that is something available like is it putting in the job posting like we
17:17accept flexible hours like how can you show how can you put up your green flag as a
17:20company saying look this is a spot where if you need to run out at 2 o'clock
17:23because your kid smacked his head which my kid does all the time then that's okay you
17:27know so I think first of all people need to ensure that that's true right
17:32like sure there they got it up they got to ensure that the managers like the
17:37people leaders in that company they really behave that way right like that
17:41they're not gonna you know throw a side eye like if something like that happens
17:46right but once you do I think your own employees can be your biggest advocates
17:50you know like that can be one one compelling selling point if you want to
17:54compete for top talent that could be a very interesting selling point that the
17:59one that I've used in the past like with women that work for me you have an
18:03MBA from Northwestern I do from Kellogg yeah what there's a lot of
18:08conversation about higher education especially with AI do you let's start
18:12here is an MBA still valuable in 2026 that's a great question and I think it
18:17depends to whom right I think for people that first like they want to make maybe
18:23a career change in an MBA would qualify them for that and they wouldn't be able
18:27to do that otherwise so this is one aspect the other aspect is how is that
18:32MBA going to be paid for right like how are they going to be funded because in my
18:36case like coming from Brazil I need I needed to pay out-of-pocket I was coming
18:40back for a job in a country and not being paid in US dollars so I was taking like a
18:45big FX risk like coming back so I I think depending on where where somebody
18:52seated depending on how they're gonna find like those programs are can get
18:55really expensive and it might not be the best ROI for their time because when you
19:00take a full-time program it's not just the cost of the program is also the
19:03opportunity cost of the time that you're not working because you've got to
19:06wait you've got to give up your job to go to school for a year or two right you
19:10know and pay tuition so that math is really hard right you know so in a
19:15world in which technology has brought us like so many so much tooling and you can
19:20do so much with that like I think in certain cases the math is harder yeah
19:25yeah it's a good point about the opportunity cost I think people just
19:27think the outright tuition but also what are you losing in between I want to
19:32give you a little bit of time to brag because this year you signed to be a
19:36partner with Mercedes F1 team we did and if you're not a follower of F1 there's
19:41five races left and I don't want to jinx it but don't jinx it Mercedes is let's
19:46they are a ton of bad things would have to happen for Mercedes to not win the
19:51championship and for their top race you're not when the driver's champ so
19:53first of all do you have a crystal ball for sports and if so can we talk
19:56afterwards I'd like to play some bets well but what I guess those deals are so
20:00interesting to me because how do you think about it how do you assert like we got
20:04value out of this everybody loves live events but how do you think about it
20:07from an executive perspective so we put a lot of thought into this into this
20:12partnership I also like to think that we pixie-dusted them a little bit and we
20:16brought some luck you were the difference it wasn't total it wasn't you know I
20:19keep telling them but listen we as I was telling you one of the hardest jobs here
20:26in the US and globally because like on the same day that we announced our US entry
20:31also launched a global account right like that people in 35 countries can use
20:36and open and operate so we need to now take the new bank brand out of Brazil
20:41maximum Colombia and into a global stage and F1 is actually the most global sport
20:47in the world because actually one championship like globally you know that
20:51travels the whole world do it on a season that lasts almost the whole year that is
20:56super active that is extremely well represented in terms of like different
21:00geographies whether those are the races or the drivers or the teams there's a lot
21:05of passion on it is a high growth sport so ever since Drive to Survive kind of
21:10started a few years ago eight nine years ago the sport has really picked up so so
21:14there's a lot to be excited about F1 but when we think about the passion point
21:18like the pet people are fans of the teams you know very few drivers if any have
21:24their own personal fandom so when they switch it's kind of like kind of like
21:28soccer that people are like are you know cheer for a specific team right I think
21:32you have like the Messi's of the world who were also like a partner we also we're
21:38also naming the stadium for inner Miami and which is Messi's team but anyway
21:42that's another conversation but I think people people are really passionate about
21:47those teams and Mercedes is just a phenomenal team they're winning machine yeah
21:51they're doing extremely well this year we were very smart with how we
21:56positioned our brand like on the car on the drivers like we're on the chin of
21:59the helmet we're on their color we're on their gloves so we've got a lot of
22:03visibility out of that and we're working with them on brand activations they're
22:08bringing F1 and the Mercedes specifically the Mercedes F1 team much closer to the
22:13everyday consumer so we're now this weekend is the Mexico Grand Prix it's one
22:18of our home races Kimi might be crowned a world champion on Sunday we're gonna be
22:23cheery very hard for him and the the next one is in Brazil is the Sao Paulo Grand
22:27Prix you really plan this out perfectly you know so they might be like Kimi
22:32winning this weekend and being world champion and the Mercedes being you know
22:36the team championship in Brazil so we're we're producing very interesting
22:41activations for consumers that help us amplify the brand impact sure and that
22:46really really help us bring this partnership to life and we're gonna be
22:49doing more of this in the west as well well we'll keep an eye out for Chris
22:53thanks so much for joining us big round of applause for Chris thank you