When it announced the distribution of R$70 million in dividends in April, Inter indicated to the market that it had entered a trajectory of increasing and sustainable growth.
Numbers from the first quarter of 2024 indicate that, in fact, this is happening. Net profit reached R$195 million, the highest in Inter’s history so far.
To give you an idea of what it means, it represents 55% of all profit for the entire 2023 (R$352 million) and is more than 700% higher than the positive result for the first quarter of 2023.
“Historically, the first quarter of the year is one of apprehension, as there is less activity and more defaults”, says Alexandre Riccio, senior vice-president of Inter, to NeoFeed. “But we had a super good quarter.”
Other numbers also show that Inter had a good quarter. ROE (return on equity) was 9.7%, an improvement of 1.15 percentage points – the fifth consecutive quarter of growth. And the efficiency index reached 47.7% – in the previous quarter it was 51.4% (in this case, the lower the better).
This was also the first quarter in which credit card transactions surpassed debit transactions. In total, card transactions totaled R$23 billion. Credit represented 51% of this total.
“We launched the Loop loyalty program and improved the cashback. And it is bringing greater engagement”, says Riccio, when justifying this credit card result.
According to Riccio, Inter focused on expanding the margin in 2023. Now, the objective is to have profitable growth. Two indicators are important to know if it is possible to have growth and profitability. The first of these is the number of customers.
In the first quarter, Inter reached 31.7 million customers, with an activation rate of 55%, which represents 17.4 million active customers. The number of global accounts, in turn, reached 3 million.
The second indicator is the gross financial margin, which was 9.2% in the first three months of 2024, an improvement of 0.5 percentage points. The financial margin after the PDD (Payment for Doubtful Debtors) reached 5.3% – a year before, it was 4.4%.
Despite this, the 90-day default rate increased slightly in the period. It reached 4.8%. In the first quarter of 2023, it was 4.4%.
“She is at a well-behaved and appropriate level. We were able to more than compensate with the margin expansion that we are managing to create”, says Riccio.
One of the areas that Inter should focus on is loans, whose portfolio of R$32 billion grew 3%. Almost all are collateralized products, such as anticipation of the FGTS anniversary withdrawal (there were more than 500 thousand contracts per month) or home equity.
But Inter is starting to explore the area of non-collateralized products, a small portfolio of just R$170 million, but which should gain more and more space.
Last year, five products were launched in this area, such as special checks and digital credit, in addition to products linked to credit cards (Pix financing, bill payment and credit withdrawal).
“We have seen good growth. These are products that can be a little more nervous and we are excited about the next quarters”, says Riccio.
Inter is valued at US$2.4 billion. This year, the shares, listed on the Nasdaq, rose 1.5%. In 12 months, the jump is 190%.
