“It’s very difficult to get credit as a small business; as MEI, then, it is impossible. Historically, entrepreneurs take money from individuals”, declared Livia Chanes, CEO of Nubank in Brazil, in a meeting with journalists. According to her, Nubank sees the opportunity to “unlock credit” for this audience. “We see that we have a model more efficient business, we can transfer our learning about credit management to legal entities and to organize our financial life in general.”
The business account was launched in 2019, following customer requests. Since then, Nubank has been expanding its product offering for this audience, such as debit and credit cards, limit transfers between individual and individual accounts, contactless payments via the app and investments. The loan offer had already been suggested by the unicorn for two years, since the launch of the card, in 2022.
The bank’s idea is to replicate the model used for individuals: initially granting unsecured loans and, in the future, expanding to new payroll-deductible credit products. “Brazil is a country with a volatile economy, which makes corporate business very difficult. Our way of providing credit to individuals, our proprietary mechanics, is exportable to legal entities. We have low credit card default rates. It’s a new business for us, we’re not winning the game,” he said.
“Opening a corporate account today is costly, bureaucratic, and in a few years the company could go bankrupt. For the bank, this becomes unsustainable. Nubank’s base is so large that, for us, it becomes almost residual. It’s more about convincing customers who are inside opening corporate accounts than bringing in new customers from outside, because the acquisition cost (CAC) is almost zero and we can transfer this to the offer of cheaper credit”, commented Chanes.
Tags: Nubank starts offering loans corporate customers Startups
