SÃO PAULO, May 10, 2026, 17:02 BRT
- Nu Holdings shares slid 3.23% on Friday, just ahead of Nubank’s upcoming first-quarter earnings release.
- Attention is swinging now to credit quality, expense trends, and the bank’s ability to push loan growth without letting risk standards slide.
- Over the past week, Nubank has been highlighting its AI-powered underwriting as well as stepping up its product offerings across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia to catch investor attention.
Nu Holdings Ltd. shares slipped Friday, with investors eyeing the upcoming first-quarter results to see if Nubank can maintain its pace of loan growth without letting credit losses climb.
The stock finished New York trading at $13.80, a drop of 3.23%, Bloomberg market data showed. According to its investor relations site, the company will report results after the closing bell on May 14, and plans a conference call for 6 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Brasília time.
The timing is key here. Nubank has moved past being simply a fast-growing app bank—investors now want to know just how much more its credit engine can handle across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. There’s also the question of whether operating costs will climb as it expands into additional products and markets.
Analysts tracking Nu are looking for earnings of $0.20 per share and revenue around $5.06 billion this quarter, according to MarketBeat. Last quarter, Nu reported $0.19 a share on $4.86 billion in revenue, the same note pointed out.
On paper, last quarter delivered. Nubank turned in a 50% jump in fourth-quarter net profit to $894.8 million, according to Reuters in February, with revenue climbing 45% to $4.86 billion. Customer numbers hit 131 million across the company’s three markets.
The numbers were solid, but Nu’s stock didn’t mirror the upbeat headline. Shares slipped in post-market trading, Reuters noted, as analysts zeroed in on rising costs. Citi flagged the robust revenue, but pointed out that higher cost of risk and operating expenses “mud the picture.” For lenders, cost of risk means what they shell out to absorb loans unlikely to be paid back. Reuters
Nu is making a point of highlighting its credit controls ahead of next week’s results. On a May 7 videocast, executives touted nuFormer, the bank’s latest AI-driven risk model. They said it slashed risk by 70% for comparable customers compared to older methods, and kept fourth-quarter write-offs steady at 2.8% to 2.9% of the loan book.
“We continue to expect the future to be worse than the past to maintain that bar of resilience. That’s part of Nubank’s core,” said Tyler Horn, vice president of credit risk at Nubank, during the company’s release on the videocast. Nu International
Nubank is bolstering its executive ranks. The company announced May 5 that Carl Rivera, who previously held a top role at Shopify, will become chief product officer starting May 18. Rivera will report to founder and CEO David Vélez. Vélez called Rivera’s background in global digital platforms and design “key” for the company’s push into new markets. Nu International
Rivera comes aboard just as Nubank looks to squeeze more income out of its huge customer base. The firm reported average revenue per active customer at $15 in the fourth quarter—a far cry from the $40 pulled in by Brazil’s traditional banks. That gulf is why cross-selling gets almost as much investor scrutiny as new user numbers.
Competition is fierce. In Brazil, Nu stacks up against heavyweights like Itaú Unibanco and Bradesco, while digital players—Banco Inter, Mercado Pago—keep pushing on fees, card usage, and deposit rates. Nubank, which called Brazil its core market in April, counts 113 million customers there and outlined a 45 billion reais investment plan for 2026.
Mexico is shaping up as the other major proving ground. Nu Mexico crossed the 15 million customer mark last month, placing it among the top three banks in the country by number of users. The company also reported a 61% jump in its credit portfolio over the last year, with deposits climbing 21%.
There’s a catch: rapid growth tends to muddy the numbers. Reuters noted Nubank’s over-90-day delinquency rate—a measure tracking loans unpaid for more than three months—hit 6.6% in the fourth quarter, a slight dip of 0.1 percentage point. CFO Guilherme Lago flagged to analysts that these delinquency figures typically bump up in the first quarter, a seasonal effect.
Nu’s May 14 report isn’t being seen as just another quarterly update. Investors want proof: a solid showing would underline the idea that Nubank is still managing to grab market share from established banks, and doing it without letting credit quality slip. But if the numbers disappoint—whether it’s bad loans creeping up, higher costs, or weaker customer monetization—then the recent pullback could start looking like more than simple nerves ahead of earnings.
