How's it going, guys? We are right now for the first time in my life in Brazil. Before you guys put [__] out there at home saying I'm here in Brazil, I already accepted it, I came to see these lands in person, that's how much they talk about Brazil, I came to see these lands. The only difference...
Brother. Did you see it or not? [laughs]
Brother. Very good, thank God. Arrived at once, brother.
I'm with David Vélez, I didn't expect him to arrive so suddenly like this. We are in one of his offices at Nu...
which is good, I see that over there there are also some...
Yes, on this street we have three buildings, but this is the main one.
Here we are, here we are.
And I think it's very cool because I've been here for about three hours more or less, I'm around here and I'm walking around the office and I feel that there is something very welcoming, very youthful colors and I see a lot of young people working here.
Of course. Yes, yes, yes. There is something about Nu that has to do with youth, with young people. The average is 27 years old inside. There are people from 17, 18 doing internships up to logically all ages.
Of course. And these are offices where there are workers, it has nothing to do with... like here clients don't come.
It's workers, but the interesting thing is that since we don't have a physical branch or anything crazy, it happens that we already have 120 million clients in Brazil, so every day there are two or three clients who come here, they want to talk to someone. And the people had to create a protocol to see how to serve their clients, because we don't have... there is no physical money, there are no ATMs, there is nothing.
And we have to talk about that right now because that is too crazy. So you're telling me that all customer service, everything is virtual.
100% virtual. We are already the largest private bank in Brazil and you won't find a single coin in this place or a single paper bill. It's all completely digital.
Let's go in. Come on, go ahead. Come on.
Well, we're with David Vélez, who I imagine many people know, a very well-known person in Colombia, very well-known in the world, has achieved very big things and obviously the story of overcoming, imagine how all the people are. I think this is one of the biggest streams I've ever done in my life.
Well, man, no, I've seen you a lot and congratulations and thank you for the visit. We came to this building in like 2016. We started the company in a little house here in São Paulo.
A house. The house was the size of this place here, tiny. And 30 people came to work in that house and then we moved to a bigger building.
We kept scaling. The idea was to be in that building for like 5 years and after 6 months it was full.
Wow! And I remember entering this building saying, well damn, how did it fit for the rent? Oh, that's because this was the first one.
After those three we came here and we already needed to make a bigger leap for all the people.
And I spent two weeks without sleeping thinking, how are we going to pay the rent for this one? Are we capable of making that leap and taking the risk? That is the hardest part. One also throwing oneself into the deep end and look at that.
And today, well, here we have a bit of the story here on this wall.
I started the company raising capital and there I went looking for my co-founders Cristina and Edward. Cristina is Brazilian, Edward is American. I was the typical outsider. They told me, 'What is a Colombian doing in Brazil trying to start a bank? He never worked for a bank, he never had a credit card.'
That's too much. Yes, it's a very strange story because in the end you didn't have that relationship, right?
I was, I mean, I was able to see the opportunity because I was from outside, I was outside the system. Sometimes it helps a lot to be a foreigner and see the system with fresh eyes, to question things as they are, right? If one is in that day-to-day, one doesn't see the opportunities. But once we started executing, I needed someone who was local, who understood the system from the inside, and there came Cris. And we always saw ourselves as a technology company, not a bank, and she brought that focus on the technology part and helped us create the technology.
And good allies, I imagine, because in the end looking at it...
Tremendous, tremendous allies who are still with us in different areas. This is the little house where we worked more or less.
Ah, this is the little house.
We were there almost two years. Edward, my co-founder, lived on the second floor. One of the first programmers lived with him. He worked 20 hours. The same programmer was there, he himself with his boss working, living on the second floor and working on the first floor, and they worked 20 hours a day. We would leave and Edward was at the computer programming and we came back the next day and Edward was still there with the computer programming.
Ah, okay. So, Edward is the programmer of everything.
That's it. An impressive guy, someone incredibly hard-working who built our entire system, programmed it. We had a little dog there that we found at the São Paulo airport. One of our programmers found him all alone on the street and adopted him. We had him in the house walking around. And this was the first card, one of the first ones that was printed. We launched 12 cards for the 12 employees. When we had the first card, there were 12 of those, 12 of these. And there's a video out there on the internet showing the first transaction. All of us after a year of working like... watching to see how it went. We went to a bar to buy a beer, swiped the card and it didn't work and everyone there, everyone disappointed.
Ah, no, but it was recorded how they were watching to see if it worked. I have to watch that video.
That video is very good. On the internet there, since we were all very young and obviously there it started and people said... people, all the cards in Brazil were the same color, all identical, all black, gold, and the idea was to get the most anti-bank color possible, a color that people would say, 'How can a bank be that color?'
Because the opportunity we saw is, I always tell the story of having gotten stuck in that bank branch here in São Paulo trying to open an account, and they treated everyone terribly, and it was an absurd experience. I didn't understand how these banks treated people this way, and there I started to understand and seek to understand, and I realized that those people... there were five banks owning 90% of the banking system in Brazil and Latin America. They had lost and ignored clients for a long time and it was a very backward organizational culture, there was no innovation, they didn't think about the client. So, somehow from the beginning we saw ourselves as the anti-bank. In fact, if you take Nu and flip it, it's symmetrical, it says 'unbank'.
Oh, so... here comes the anti-bank. How cool, man.
And we always saw ourselves culturally as the opposite of a bank in the organizational structure, in the culture, in the type of people we hire. If you look at this here and compare it with a bank or the buildings... there's a street here called Faria Lima, where the big banks are, where the people in suits and ties go to the banks, this is the opposite of that.
The complete opposite, and I can tell you because when I arrived here I only saw young people, a super... like, look at this, this doesn't look like... young people arrive, everyone is very, very cheerful, happy.
Of course, I think the environment also makes them feel at home, feel comfortable.
I think it's super cool. In fact, I feel that one of the most incredible things a person can have in life is quick access to healthcare and quick access to the bank. With those two things one is happy. In Colombia I don't have Nu yet, which we were just talking about...
Yes, we have to work on that.
I said, I want my silver card, the latest one.
Let's do it, let's do it. We'll send one over.
Since I don't have Nu in Colombia, obviously I constantly experience all these kinds of problems that you experienced here, and I see it, and when there's a problem with the bank that I have to go... and sometimes you send your legal representative and even then you have to go yourself, and you say, 'Brother, your whole afternoon is gone.' So I think this is incredible. I imagine there's already expansion, right?
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Of course. Colombia, right? In Colombia we already have 6 million clients.
We are already the fifth largest bank, fifth largest financial institution in Colombia. In Mexico we have 16 million and in Brazil 120 million. So 140 million clients in these three countries and we just launched in the United States a couple of weeks ago.
How difficult is it for a person to decide to switch from their bank? Do you think it's difficult?
I think at first it's difficult and that's why we started very focused on young people, because young people are much more open to using new technologies. Young people are more digital, more digital natives. Someone already at a more advanced age is always going to be more reluctant, it's going to cost them more to take that risk and they don't have a branch. But what we saw here is that once young people validate and realize that instead of waiting 5 months for an account they can open it in a minute, instead of paying thousands of pesos they don't have to pay anything. We don't charge anything. They realize and say, 'But what is this, why mom and dad... why are you in this bank?' And they tell their parents and then their grandparents. Today we have clients in Brazil who are 90 years old, 100 years old, clients of all demographics, in 100% of municipalities, in rural areas, in the Amazon, in the cities. In Colombia we have clients in 98% of the municipalities of Colombia. There are two municipalities in Chocó that we're missing to be in all the municipalities. We need to find people there, they're municipalities to go and close the country.
So a young person can create their account as long as they're of legal age, from home, and have their bank account. So if I go, I'll have it.
Right away. You download the app, in a minute you fill it out, the account opens, we send the credit card to your home in one or two days it's there and that's it, with no cost at all, and you're using a bank card, sending money. Instead of going to grovel at the bank branch for them to open an account.
How crazy, really. How crazy, brother. Incredible, I mean, very mind-blowing. What I think you did was bring the future to the present, that's why you have what you have. And here, what?
That was the first transaction, speaking of when we swiped the card and it didn't work, there we tried again...
And it worked. Here it says in Portuguese, first transaction, April 1st, 2014, a lunch of 33 reais. That was the first transaction, the first of now billions of transactions.
And here, this is what we talked about, what we've been through, a wow. One of the things we said here, there was so much resistance and people felt... had so much fury against banks because of the experience, because of making them wait 5 months. Imagine that 60 million Brazilians didn't even have access to banks. So we said, how do we reinvent that customer experience and make it absurdly good. And that's what we told our customer service people, you have to be... the number one task is to do things that blow the client's mind with some experience. So, for example, someone did... a client once called and said, 'Hey, my dog ate my credit card, I need you to send me a new card.' And this person sent them a new card and sent a toy for the dog.
And this person took the dog toy, posted it on the internet, they created a channel with 300,000 people on Facebook and started a virality of things. A traditional bank would say, 'But how do you do that? You don't have money to send that to every client, you're going to go bankrupt.' But on the contrary, that kind of thing from us sending... a person called and said, 'I'm going to Italy with my wife and I'm getting married, I need a higher limit.' The person on our team not only gave a higher limit, but sent them a guide to the best restaurants in Italy, handwritten, telling them these are the best places and gave them restaurant reservations. So, reinventing the experience with clients.
Ah, how crazy, man.
No, everything here is the first building, I imagine.
This was the one we're in here, and this one is the one across the street. Both on this same block. And in 2017 we opened an office in Germany, which was our first step in building engineering outside of Latin America. And in 2018 we launched our second product which was the account. We always started with credit cards and then with the account.
Very fast progress, right?
Too fast. For about 4 years we were super focused on doing just one little thing which was that credit card in Brazil.
Look, I'm going to say something, I'm going to say it here to the people. I've been streaming for a long time and right now we're talking... three months was the schedule for this stream. This is the stream I was most looking forward to, man, sorry, brother. Three months. I imagine your schedule.
Yes, yes. Well, well, we did it, we did it.
A person like you with such a crazy schedule, I mean, traveling every moment, meetings every moment, I mean, really, do you think it's a heavy life?
It's very heavy. It's very heavy.
Yes. Traveling every week.
And just when I was talking about that, I was saying, 'Man, I'd love to do a stream with him, it's really tough.' And they'd say, 'No, that guy's schedule, man, you have to wait 3 months.' I waited 3 months, no problem. I arrived and now that I'm here, my question is this, I mean, at what point can you keep advancing and keep working knowing that you no longer need to?
Yes, because at some point you do it for the challenge and for redefining what success is, right? It's like in a video game, each step has been like a higher level of difficulty.
First it seemed impossible that we could reach a million clients in Brazil when they told us that all these banks were going to kill us, kidnap us, they weren't going to let us compete. So, a million clients seemed impossible. We reached 1 million in 2 years. And we increased, we went to the second level, we're going to build the largest bank in Brazil and we got there in 6 years, and then we said, let's start internationalizing today. Let's go to Mexico and Colombia and there we became the second largest digital bank in Mexico and one of the largest in Colombia and Brazil. And now two weeks ago we took the next step which was launching the United States, which is the largest market in the world, and a global account for 35 countries. So, in the end it's about having something ahead of you, there's so much to do and if you're having fun, working with cool people, good people, it doesn't feel like work, right?
Of course. And bringing a good product too, in the end...
And changing people's lives, having fun, doing something good for people, which is ultimately the great motivation.
How cool, bro, really. That's a good answer, man. Look at that answer, because of course, in the end it's also a project you've been working on from scratch, what it takes to get it to another level.
Yes. Guinness Record. This was very cool because one of the things we said at some point was, and it's a marketing action. You understand marketing very well. We said we wanted, when we launched our Ultravioleta product, which is a new product, we did a whole competition to see if we could win the Guinness Record for the consumer product with the most unboxings at the same time.
So, we invited a bunch of clients. I don't remember how many there were. Here it says several thousand clients and all of them sat down, took the credit card box and everyone did the unboxing. It's the biggest unboxing in history in the world.
And there they gave us, there's a person from Guinness Records, they gave us a record.
Good Guinness. Good record, really. Good memory.
And hello Mexico, Colombia.
In 2019 we launched Mexico and Colombia.
We have to do something in Colombia.
Yes, we have to do something in Colombia. Of course, of course. No, we're going to do Colombia. We'll do this in the office in Colombia too.
Ah, I'd be happy. The truth is, I'm not saying this because you're here. I don't like the banks in Colombia, bro. I don't like them because obviously I handle my own things and I know how hard it is to be with a bank in Colombia. I want to try it, I want to try it. I'm telling you, not because you're here, because obviously, man, one also wants effectiveness.
No, no, no. You'll see, you'll see. We're going to help you open that account right away. Let's see how it goes here with Luisa Fuentes.
That was the first account in Colombia. Luisa is a client from Colombia who became a big fan of Nu, she started telling people in Colombia, in Bogotá about it and she was one of the ambassadors. Much of what we've seen is that growth becomes viral word-of-mouth. We don't invest a lot of money in marketing, nothing. Everything has been organic. People love the product and have those experiences and go tell their family, their parents, go on social media and say, 'Wow, this is impressive.' And they compare it with the experience they have with banks.
Of course, because not everyone is using this.
And that's how Luisa became a great client of ours in Colombia.
What can David Vélez say that Nu is missing? Because it's no longer Nu Bank, it's no longer Bank.
No, in Colombia we are Nu. In Colombia we are Nu.
Okay. Here it is Nu Bank.
Okay. What can you say? Because in Colombia, what can you say that Nu has but is missing, and that which is missing, another bank has?
Well, there's still a lot to build in Brazil. First, we already have a much more complete portfolio that we need to launch in Colombia and Mexico. So, here we already have a more premium type of card called Ultravioleta and Cromo, and the purple one which is the basic one we have here. So, there are already several segments with loyalty programs and rewards. Of course, if you have one of the higher cards it might serve you for things at the airport. You can start going to the frequent flyers at the airports, it gives you points, miles, all that. We're going to have that in Colombia soon too, I hope. Those different segmentations. Here we already have an investment platform where people can invest and buy stocks, buy crypto, buy fixed income within the app, you can buy Bitcoin, you can also buy a whole portfolio of insurance, you can already plan your trips, you can book plane tickets and hotels within our app, and we have a guarantee that if the ticket changes price afterwards and goes down, the difference is automatically given to you for the changes in ticket prices and the hotels.
Of course, it's not just an application for your money.
It's an application that serves you for more things. It's becoming like a super app.
It's an application that tries to solve many of your day-to-day problems. We have an account for small businesses which is something we really want to launch in Colombia. There's a lot of need that small businesses have, if consumers have difficulty with banks, those with small businesses have it even more complicated.
And for young people, for example, many young people, let's talk about Colombia, it's hard for them to even get a bank card, I mean, it's not easy, right?
And on top of that, you know that in Colombia, for example, look at the mortgages...
That's so high, that doesn't make sense, you know what I mean? Those are the things I feel Nu can change, right?
Yes. For young people here in Brazil, and again we want to have it in Colombia soon, there are already accounts for children and for people between 6 and 18 years old. So parents can give their children cards, they can have control, they can save together.
It's one of the segments that's growing the most for us here in Brazil, children, 8, 9, 10 year olds who start saving and start learning how credit cards work.
No, incredible. Of course, imagine an 8-year-old already learning to use a card. Obviously when they grow up they won't have what most people have had with banks.
Of course, because afterwards they get into debt or end up blacklisted and can never get another card again. They learn to handle that from a young age.
And let's talk about someone who is blacklisted in Colombia. Can they get a card?
Someone can get a card... probably when someone has been blacklisted, what we usually do is they can open a card with a low limit, okay? And as they pay off that limit and pay the card on time, that credit line increases every month.
Good, but they're given the opportunity, right?
They're given the opportunity. Exactly. Or they make a deposit and there they're given a credit line, and once they start using it and paying on time, they build a credit history and that way the person can get out of that credit bureau that so many people end up in.
Incredible. That's very good, that's very cool. Of course, because there are many people, young people, people who are blacklisted or who have never had the opportunity to have a bank that opens its doors to them. Incredible.
Here, what intelligence? What's written?
Ah, United States, intelligent efficiency, huh. This was when we opened our first office in the United States, especially the engineering part that we opened in Virginia and in New York. And here in 2021, 2022, the different... here they are.
That's the Ultravioleta, yes. In fact, we're releasing a new one here. Here the Cromo is missing, which is one that goes in the middle.
And what benefits does this one have? I mean, so you can say, these are the most awesome benefits of this one.
This one gives you cashback here, cashback up to 2%.
And you have a mode called LATAM where if you switch it, instead of cashback it goes to airline miles. So everything you spend keeps growing your airline miles. It also includes access to lounges at airports all over the world and here at the São Paulo airport, when you travel through São Paulo you can stay there. We have it, we give you an entry. There's a very cool lounge where people can go in and wait.
Ah, of course, those who have all the cards can go in there. Incredible, incredible. And a question, does Nu have... for young people or anyone to be able to have their CDT?
Yes, of course. We have what we call savings boxes, okay? That you invest in, and one of the things Nu has done a lot is give you a very high return on your money, between 13 and 14%, 13 to 15% interest on the saved money.
Oh man, I can't believe it.
So that means a lot to people because most people... the banks pay them zero for their money, 0%. Most people see their savings shrinking because banks pay zero and charge a lot of fees. Instead, here every day we show the person how we deposit money into those savings and how it keeps going up and they're really saving. And that's a tremendous paradigm shift.
To make it simpler. If a person puts 100 million pesos into an account of... I don't know what it's called, it's a savings box... after a year, how much do they have?
13 million just from having the money there.
Just from having the money in there. And that varies a bit depending on the interest rate, but yes.
I think I'm going to move my money to one of those, right? So obviously someone with a lot of money is going to get much more, right?
It goes up much, much more. It goes up much, much more. Imagine that 70% of people who have a bank account, the banks pay them zero, zero. So people at banks aren't paid for having their money there. It's the opposite.
It's the opposite, you're absolutely right, right? Incredible this one. Incredible.
This is for small businesses too, Business. So for everyone, we have more than 6 million micro-entrepreneurs here in Brazil and they have our account, that white one, and it's helped them a lot.
We have here a... this was a piece. This is an interesting story. In 2021 we did our IPO in New York. So the company became public. We went there to the New York Stock Exchange to ring the bell, ding, ding, ding. And that was when the company went public and basically anyone today can buy a Nu stock. And when we did that, our focus has always been our clients, as I was saying, our goal has always been how do we bring our clients... So what we decided to do, something that hasn't been done anywhere in the world, was we gave a Nu share to more than 8 million clients. Those 8 million clients became partners of Nu.
And we also let them buy Nu shares in our application. And this is a little piece, we call it the 'pedacito'. The little piece represents the little piece of Nu that we gave to each person.
And it became the stock with the largest number of owners in the Brazilian market.
How cool, right? And I want to tell you something, I've had many meetings with many friends who are businessmen or people in Colombia who want to do projects and I understand your whole story because every time I have a meeting, on the slide is David Vélez. I'm telling you, brother, I'm telling you. It's a pleasure to be here because for all the businessmen in Colombia and for, well, obviously most businessmen in Colombia and for many entrepreneurs, they use your story as a method of motivation and also as, hey, I'm going to follow the steps David Vélez followed. I was sitting normally, I've sat with many very tough people and they all tell me, 'Look at David Vélez, look, for example, what David Vélez did.' Hey, David Vélez is always in a business conversation. It's impressive, brother. That's why I thank you so much for the space, also for the people who right now we're going to sit down and get advice from this gentleman, it must be crazy. You know, imagine being with him. It's that we're with the man. We're with the man, man. We're with the man. Well, let's move forward a bit. Let's move forward, put it here. Thanks.
2024, 100 million clients or what?
In 2024 we reached 100 million clients, a number that seemed absurdly impossible, right? Like reaching 100 million.
No, no, no, it already has 140.
And this place here where we're going to enter is where we hold the whole company's meetings. Every two weeks or every month we hold a whole company meeting. Logically there are already people from different offices in places around the world, but it represents a lot of our story here. You'll see, for example, very little of what we just saw, right? And what I tell you, look, the whole environment, all the work offices have a super calm, comfortable environment so that everyone feels relaxed. Here at first we were going to do the part where we were going to sit down, but no longer, we already have another place, a nicer place, but there I'll show you, for example, that little house is there again, the little house where we started. Ah, there's the building where we are now. The New York Stock Exchange where we do the... and many in the first offices we had, we had a gigantic mural of dinosaurs, there were five giant dinosaurs that each represented one of the five big banks in Brazil, and for a long time our vision as a company was we're going against the dinosaurs and we talked a lot about the dinosaurs. When we came to this building we changed that a bit. We said, let's stop being against something and let's be for something. So the dinosaurs end up wrapped in a purple smoke of Nu. Now they're purple and we focus on our clients, we see clients, a Colombian client over there with the Colombian flag, clients of all kinds, young, old, athletes, young, old, anyone can obviously be a client. It's like the concept they have organized.
Very cool, very cool. And you know what, I really like purple.
Yes, I also had planned to make a bank with purple. Here [laughs]
Let's go this way. Let's go up this way.
And we'll go in there for a bit.
Well, and the Nu offices... the internet doesn't drop in the elevator.
Let's see if the elevator works.
No, not the internet, the elevator, that's the craziest part of...
So that people are connected there, you know? And you know what seems really crazy to me? The fact that all the offices are offices only for people who work at Nu, not for clients. I mean, it seems to me that they really don't have any... I mean, they must have problems, obviously, like everything, but that people really don't come here to complain about the lines at those banks over there in Colombia, and one says, 'Wow, everything is digital, everything is digital.' And obviously sometimes we fail and the app fails, but anyway.
