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David Velez

Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Nu Holdings Nubank

Search every verified David Velez interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. David Vélez, founder and CEO of Nubank, has been active in media appearances discussing the company's growth and strategy. In an October 2026 podcast, he stated that Nubank serves 140 million customers with 10,000 employees, and he argued that the global consumer financial services industry, which he estimated at $10 trillion, remains largely controlled by incumbent banks, with digital banks representing less than 10% of the market. He also discussed Nubank's recent expansion into the United States and expressed views on artificial intelligence, calling it one of the most transformational technologies in history and comparing it to the internet and smartphones as a major platform shift. Vélez also engaged with Colombian streamer Westcol in a series of interviews filmed at Nubank's offices in Brazil, where he discussed the company's history, its focus on young customers, and its products in Colombia. He described Nubank's early challenges, including skepticism from investors, and noted that the company's average employee age is 27. In August 2026, Vélez announced a donation of 100 billion Colombian pesos to support those affected by an earthquake in Colombia, and he said Nubank was providing financial relief measures for affected clients, including fee waivers and refinancing options. He also discussed his philanthropic focus on education, citing a statistic that it takes eight generations in Colombia to move from the lowest to the middle class, and mentioned an offer he made to Colombia's president regarding technology in education.

Recent appearances

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“The first obvious rearrangement is those $600 billion that banks are keeping in their balance sheet to pay for banking branches get rearranged, get forwarded to all the banking consumers, right? Because suddenly they realize what am I doing with my money leaving it at zero? Especially when you think about compounding what that means for savings and compounding interest, this is a lot of money being sent ultimately to”

“If you look at global consumer financial services, it's about a $10 trillion industry and still something like 90% of that industry goes through banking branches. And it's owned by incumbent banks. So while there is a lot of neo banks and fintechs across the world in a number of different areas, we are all of those fintechs and all these new banks together and we're less than 10% of that entire market. So it's still ”

“I think it certainly helped that I had been on the other side of the table, that I had been an investor and had looked at many startups. I already knew what investors wanted to hear, and I knew a bit about how to tell the story and the type of problems these large investors really want to invest in. A point that is sometimes not well understood is that these types of investors want to invest in difficult things, not ”

“The good thing is that banks see us as an app, right? So, their challenge is to improve their app, and then we’re on the same level, and that’s the end of Nubank. It’s a similar view, right? Thinking that Uber is just an app is like thinking Amazon is just a website with an app, or Netflix is just a site. It’s the same, it’s basically the same relationship. What they ignore is that a technology company is much more t”

“I would invest in CDs or bonds, or even Nubank's savings box, and it's not just to advertise, but the truth is that most people think investing means taking absurd risks to try to double or triple their money. But really, the way to build money and build wealth is by investing for the long term, having a very long-term mindset and seeing how the interest rate compounds over the years, compounding and compounding, and”

“The way to think about it is that up until now our data center business has been almost entirely GPUs. Vera is our CPU, and you know what's really exciting is that Vera opens a brand new 200 billion TAM for NVIDIA, a market we have never addressed before, and every major hyperscaler is partnering with us to get it deployed, and that's huge for the company because for the first time we have a second engine of that sca”

Other executives at Nu Holdings Nubank

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