TIVP023: NUBANK (NU): BANKING ON LATIN AMERICA

W/ SHAWN O’MALLEY & DANIEL MAHNCKE

08 June 2025

Shawn O’Malley and Daniel Mahncke break down Nubank (ticker: NU), a leading fintech company providing credit card, banking, and insurance services to millions across Latin America, with nearly 60% of Brazil’s adult population using one of the company’s products. Nubank’s success is a true David vs. Goliath story, overcoming a powerful banking oligopoly in Brazil to provide more accessible and lower-fee digital banking services to the masses, who had long been neglected by traditional banks.

In this episode, you’ll learn how Nubank grew to become one of Latin America’s largest companies with over 100 million users in just over a decade, how being a digital-first bank has given them huge operating cost advantages, why Nubank’s unit economics are so attractive, what key metrics to focus on when evaluating a banking business, and whether Nubank is attractively valued given its incredible growth prospects, plus so much more!

Prefer to watch? Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to watch this episode on YouTube.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • Nubank’s inspiring David vs. Goliath origin story.
  • How Nubank’s first credit card product spread like wildfire.
  • Why the customer experience with Nubank is fundamentally different than with competitors.
  • What makes David Velez such a special founder and CEO.
  • How Nubank has used its low-cost moat to compound the advantages of its business structure and built customer loyalty by sharing those rewards with customers.
  • Why Nubank’s growth story may only be just starting.
  • Whether Shawn & Daniel add NU to The Intrinsic Value Portfolio.
  • And much, much more!

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

 

[00:00:00] Shawn O’Malley: He said in a call that quote, nobody in history as far as we can tell globally no other global consumer retail bank has been able to build a multi-country platform that is extremely efficient, that has one code base that ultimately could give them a significant advantage in expanding. And that’s what we’ve been building for about 18 months already and probably have another 18 to 24 months.

[00:00:22] Shawn O’Malley: And is something that will continue maybe forever, is having a proprietary core banking platform that allows us to be in multiple countries and allows us to launch in new countries with relatively low investment. And if you want to be really bullish on Nubank, you could argue that they have a potential to take over all of Latin America at scale with low cost.

[00:00:44] Shawn O’Malley: And if anyone is going to do that it, it’s probably going to be them.

[00:00:53] Daniel Mahncke: Before we begin today, Shawn and I would like to make a special announcement. We are launching a new private investor community devoted to intrinsic value. We are opening up 30 spots to the public. The community will be dedicated to sharing and giving feedback on investment ideas, networking with like-minded investors, exploring our curiosity in the investment world, and it includes the opportunity to join chords with famous experts.

[00:01:19] Daniel Mahncke: It’s going to be a popular offering. So to secure your spot, head over to theinvestorspodcast.com/intrinsicvaluecommunity. That’s theinvestorspodcast.com/intrinsicvaluecommunity. You can also find that link in the show notes in the description of this episode below. And with that, let’s get to it.

[00:01:40] Daniel Mahncke: Today, Shawn’s pitching an innovative FinTech company out of Brazil, one that is growing incredibly fast and promises to revamp how much of Latin America banks, one of our financial firms, are growing quickly. That’s famously a red flag to look out for because they may be aggressively taking risks that other banks and lenders are just not willing to take, setting themselves up to be at high risk of blowing up.

[00:02:07] Daniel Mahncke: Shawn, I’m sure you will help us better understand Nubanks growth prospects today and the risks it’s taking, but it’s just the last thing I’ll mention before flowing it over to you. What has really brought our attention to this company is the fact that Berkshire Hathaway has been an investor in it for several years now.

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