Nu Holdings Launches in US With Global Digital Account
BRAZIL · FINTECH
Key Facts
- —The launch Nu Holdings began operating in the United States on 10 September 2026, announced by CEO David Vélez and US chief Cristina Junqueira at an event in Miami.
- —The product Nu Global is a multicurrency digital account with fee-free transfers across more than 35 countries, built on USDC and EURC stablecoin rails paying up to 3.50 percent APY.
- —The full suite The US offer also includes a high-yield savings account, credit cards and remittances, initially delivered through bank partners.
- —The charter path Nu applied for a US national bank charter on 30 September 2025 and won conditional OCC approval on 29 January 2026 for Nubank, N.A., based in McLean, Virginia; FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals remain pending.
- —The scale Nu serves 139 million customers in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, crossed US$1 billion in quarterly profit for the first time in Q2 2026, and is valued at about US$74 billion.
The biggest digital bank most Americans have never heard of just arrived on their doorstep — with 139 million customers, a billion-dollar quarter behind it, and a product aimed at the world’s migrant corridors.
Nu Holdings, the Brazilian fintech behind Nubank, launched operations in the United States on 10 September 2026, unveiling a global digital account at an event in Miami, the company disclosed in an SEC filing and at the event covered by Reuters and Gestión.
Founder and CEO David Vélez and co-founder Cristina Junqueira, who heads Nu’s US business, presented Nu Global: a multicurrency digital account that lets users move money without fees across more than 35 countries. Deposits are converted into the USDC and EURC stablecoins, earning 3.50 percent and 2.20 percent APY respectively, and the account comes with a virtual card.
The launch, Nu told the market, marks the start of US operations with a “full suite of financial products” — alongside Nu Global, a high-yield savings account, credit cards and remittance services, offered initially through partner banks while Nu’s own charter proceeds.
A Charter Two Years in the Making
The Miami announcement is the visible tip of a long regulatory campaign. Nu applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on 30 September 2025 for a de novo national bank charter. On 29 January 2026, the OCC granted preliminary conditional approval to Nubank, National Association, with its main office in McLean, Virginia — the first green light, with Bloomberg reporting at the time that the bank aimed to launch in 2027.
Nu is now in the bank-organization phase: it must still satisfy the OCC’s conditions and secure deposit insurance from the FDIC and a Federal Reserve account before Nubank, N.A. can operate as a full national bank. Partner-bank arrangements let it sell to Americans in the meantime — the same playbook used by most fintech entrants, but backed by a balance sheet few challengers can match.
Why Nu Global Aims at Borders, Not Branches
Nu Global’s design tells you exactly which customer Nu is chasing: people with what the company calls “global lives” — migrants, remote workers and families moving money between the United States and Latin America. Remittances from the United States to Latin America run into the tens of billions of dollars every year, and incumbents charge fees Nu is betting it can undercut with stablecoin settlement.
The product also fits Nu’s internal logic. Tens of millions of its Brazilian, Mexican and Colombian customers travel, work or hold family ties in the US. When Nu filed for the charter, Vélez said the move would “help us better serve our existing customers based in the country” — the beachhead strategy is cross-selling to the diaspora before fighting Chase and Bank of America for mainstream depositors.
Miami is the natural stage. Nu already holds naming rights to Inter Miami’s new Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park, announced in March 2026, and Junqueira has relocated to lead the US push personally — a signal of how central the market is to Nu’s next decade.
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The Numbers Behind the Challenge
Nu enters the US from a position no other Latin American fintech has reached: 139 million customers at the end of June 2026 — 118 million in Brazil, 16 million in Mexico and more than 5 million in Colombia. Second-quarter net income crossed US$1 billion for the first time, as The Rio Times reported last week, and first-quarter revenue topped US$5 billion.
The company carries a market value of about US$74 billion and announced a US$1 billion share repurchase program in June. It is profitable in all three of its home markets — a contrast with US challenger banks such as Chime or the retreating European neobanks, most of which never reached profitability at scale before crossing the Atlantic.
What It Means for US Retail Banking
American retail banking is famously hard to crack: no foreign-founded digital bank has taken meaningful deposit share from the giants. Nu’s edge is a defensible niche — the tens of millions of US residents with financial lives spanning Latin America — combined with a cost structure built in Brazil that runs at a fraction of US peers.
For foreigners and expatriates in the US, Nu Global is immediately relevant: fee-free movement of money to 35-plus countries at a stated yield, from an app that already dominates its home region. The open questions are regulatory — how fast the FDIC and Fed move — and competitive: Wise, Revolut and Remitly crowd the same corridor. But none of them arrives with 139 million customers already in hand.
Sources: EFE · Nu Holdings SEC 6-K · Nubank · US OCC
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