Neobanks (part 1) - riding the wave

How neobanks do it better

This is a two-part series on neobanks. Part two will follow early next week and examine the differing strategies of the big three UK neobanks.

Update: part two can be found here.

Good times for neobanks

Neobanks have had a good few months. In May, Brazilian neobank Nubank announced that it had reached 100m customers. The 100m customers sit across Nubank’s three operating markets, with 92m in Brazil, 7m in Mexico, and 1m in Colombia. It took Nubank just 11 years to go from launch to 100m customers, and it is adding over 1m new customers a month in Brazil alone.

Rupak Ghose has called Nubank the gold standard in fintech neobanks, noting that its Q2 results, announced in mid-August, saw revenues rise 65% year-on-year to $2.8bn. 60% of Nubank’s customers use it as their primary bank account, an impressive statistic given with neobanks there’s always the risk that users create an account but don’t use it day to day.

In addition to the growth in revenue and customer numbers, a key strategic part…