The five ways a Latin American neobank makes money are interest on the credit it lends, float on customer deposits, card interchange, subscription fees and, on dollar accounts, a margin on currency conversion. Credit leads at the largest player. Nubank's gross profit in the second quarter of 2026 split 41% credit, 34% float and 25% fees.
A neobank here is a digital financial app with no branches, serving people or small businesses in Brazil, Mexico or Colombia. The mix changes with the product. A card-and-credit app lives on lending and deposit income, while a dollar account app, which holds stablecoin balances shown in dollars, earns mostly on conversion margin. For the US side, see US neobank remittance economics.
Where does a Latin American neobank's money come from?
From five places, and each one has a different driver and a different risk. Credit and float need balance sheet. Fees and conversion margin need only volume.
The revenue lines of a Latin American neobank
Revenue line | How it earns | What drives it | Main risk |
Credit | Interest and fees on cards and loans | Size of the loan book and the mix of products | Credit losses, funding cost |
Float | The gap between what deposits cost and what the money earns | Total balances and the interest rate | Rate cuts, depositors who leave |
Card interchange | A share of the fee a merchant's bank pays the card issuer | Card spend per user | The issuer and program partners take their share |
Conversion margin | A fee or spread on turning one currency into another | Volume converted in and out | Users comparing the amount received |
Subscriptions and services | Monthly fee for a premium tier or extra accounts | Share of users who upgrade | Churn when the value is unclear |
On Lumx, the line a neobank controls through the API is the conversion margin, set as a partner fee on each conversion in and out, and the sections below explain how it works.
What Nubank's second quarter of 2026 shows
Nubank is the one Latin American neobank whose economics are public in detail, so it is the reference for the lending and deposit lines. The figures below come from Nu Holdings' results report for the second quarter of 2026, filed with the SEC on August 13, 2026.
Nu Holdings, second quarter of 2026, as reported
Metric | Reported value |
Customers | 139 million globally, almost 118 million in Brazil, 15.8 million in Mexico, above 5 million in Colombia |
Gross revenue | Nearly $5.9 billion, up 39% on the year |
Net interest income | $3.7 billion |
Gross profit | $2.4 billion |
Contribution to gross profit | Credit 41%, float 34%, fees 25% |
Net income | $1.1 billion |
Total deposits | $45.3 billion |
Cost of deposits | 88% of interbank rates |
Monthly revenue per active customer | $17.1 |
Monthly cost to serve per active customer | $1.0 |
Three things stand out. Credit is the largest line but not the majority, so even the biggest card-and-loan neobank earns a third of its gross profit on float and a quarter on fees. Deposits are a profit line, not only a funding source: Nu reports a cost of deposits below the interbank rate, and that gap is the float. And a customer who is active costs about a dollar a month to serve against $17.1 of revenue, which is the scale advantage no new app starts with. The 41% is one quarter, so the split moves.
Nu also reported that it launched its bank in Mexico in August 2026 and is adding a full banking license in Brazil. Most neobanks are not there: they operate through a licensed partner and earn on the lines that need no balance sheet of their own. On Lumx, a neobank can be a customer without holding its own Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) authorization.
Float on a dollar account
Float is the money a customer leaves with you, and what you earn by holding it. On a local-currency account, the neobank pays depositors a rate and invests the balance at the interbank rate. The 88% in Nu's report is that first number.
A dollar account built on stablecoins changes the arrangement. The customer's dollars are USDC or USDT in a custodial wallet, with local deposit details attached. The balance is stablecoin, not a deposit, because Lumx is not a bank, and it is not on the neobank's books. The neobank's income moves from the balance to the movement: what it charges when money converts in and when it converts out.
Where the user's money sits, by account type
Account type | Where the balance sits | What the neobank earns on |
Local-currency deposit account | On the neobank's balance sheet | Float, plus fees |
Dollar account on stablecoin rails | In the user's custodial wallet at the provider | Conversion margin and fees |
On Lumx, each user is a customer with a wallet and the accounts the neobank requests: BRL by Pix (Brazil's instant payment system, run by the Central Bank), MXN by SPEI (Mexico's interbank transfer system, run by Banxico), COP, and USD by ACH, FEDWIRE and SWIFT. BRL accounts are named virtual accounts (a local account number issued in the customer's own name), so a Pix payout shows the customer as the payer, and the neobank opens these accounts in the names of its own users. The named virtual accounts explainer covers the account type, and pooled accounts compared shows why each user needs their own.
How does card interchange reach a neobank?
The merchant's bank pays a fee to the card issuer on every purchase, and the neobank receives a share through its card program. How much it keeps depends on the contract with the issuer and the program manager, so interchange is the line with the most hands in it. A neobank running a card on an issuer's license is a program, and the issuer and the card network are paid before it is.
For a dollar account app, the card is a retention feature more than a business, and the margin sits in funding it and cashing out.
On Lumx, the card sits with the neobank's own issuer, and Lumx covers the top-up and the off-ramp. Interchange belongs to the card program, and the partner fee applies to the conversion on each side.
How the margin on a dollar account is built
Four parts, and the user sees them as one number: the amount received. The base rate comes from the provider. A provider may keep a spread inside it. On top sits the neobank's own fee. A longer rate lock adds a fee to cover volatility.
The price of one conversion, by component
Component | Who sets it | Where it shows |
Base exchange rate | Market and liquidity | In the quote |
Provider spread and fees | The provider | Inside the rate or the quote |
Neobank partner fee | The neobank | A line in the quote |
Rate-lock fee | The provider, on locks above 30 seconds | A line in the quote |
Users judge it by what lands in their bank account. A provider's own pricing is covered in how stablecoin payout pricing works.
The example fee, 50 bps plus a $0.50 flat amount, on a $200 conversion
Line | Calculation | Amount |
Rate component | 50 bps of $200 | $1.00 |
Flat component | $0.50 | $0.50 |
Neobank partner fee | $1.00 + $0.50 | $1.50, or 0.75% of the amount |
Below $100 the flat part outweighs the rate part, so the same fee reads cheap on a large transfer and expensive on a small one. The USD to USDC and USDC to BRL pages show the pair each side of a Brazilian dollar account. Lumx offers no forward or option, so a neobank that wants one gets it from its bank or FX broker.
On Lumx, the neobank's share is a partner fee: a rate in basis points (hundredths of a percent), a flat dollar amount, or both, configured separately for on-ramps and off-ramps. The fee applies only when the request names it. On a locked rate the fee is part of the quote, and on a floating rate it applies when the transaction is created. The 30-second lock has no extra fee, and longer locks add one. The gap between the base and the final rate is the Lumx fee plus the partner fee, plus the lock fee, with no FX margin built in. Each fee is collected on every transaction into a wallet address the neobank chooses, per partner fees.
One customer's cost and how to model it
Model per funded customer, because the signup who never deposits still costs a verification. Nu's own pair, $17.1 of monthly revenue and $1.0 of cost to serve per active customer, gives a contribution of $16.1 before credit losses and funding. Its cost to serve follows Nu's own definition, so treat it as a scale reference.
For a dollar account app the formula has fewer lines, and each is something you set or measure.
A per-user model for a dollar account app
Step | Formula | Input you supply |
Revenue per funded user | Conversions per month times average amount times your fee | Your own usage data |
Variable cost per funded user | Provider fees per conversion times conversions | Your provider's pricing |
Contribution per funded user | Revenue minus variable cost | The two lines above |
Break-even funded users | Fixed monthly cost divided by contribution | Platform fee, support and compliance staff |
Take the fee from the previous table on two $600 conversions a month, as an illustration with invented usage: the rate component is $3.00 and the flat part $0.50 on each, so $7.00 a month before the provider's own costs. Whether that clears fixed costs depends on how many users fund, not on how many sign up.
The hidden costs are per user and independent of activity: identity checks, support, compliance monitoring and acquisition. On Lumx, pricing is a monthly platform fee plus usage-based per-transaction fees, transparent FX on locked quotes and no published plans. There is no pre-funding: the neobank does not park capital in settlement accounts, because conversion and settlement happen when the transaction starts. There is no setup fee, and the standard agreement has a monthly minimum with a ramp-up period that waives it in the first months. The corridor between USD and BRL is where the model shows its numbers first, since a Brazilian user collecting dollars triggers a conversion each way.
Price the conversion and leave the account free
I recommend that a neobank launching a dollar account charge on the conversion and leave the account itself free. I would set the partner fee so that the amount a user receives still beats what the same user would get from a bank wire, because people moving money across borders compare the delivered amount before they compare anything else. And I would skip a monthly fee at the start: it bills the users who never fund, and those are the users who decide whether the app feels worth keeping.
When this revenue model is the wrong one
A conversion-margin model is the wrong base when the business plan needs lending or deposit yield. Those lines come from a balance sheet, and on a stablecoin dollar account the balance is stablecoin, not a deposit, because Lumx is not a bank, per the Lumx customers docs.
It is also the wrong model for an app whose users rarely convert, because volume on the conversion line stays small. And where regulation treats a balance as a deposit the app must hold, a wallet product does not substitute for the license, so check how each country sees the service before pricing it. The licence question is covered in neobank license in Brazil, and the dollar account launch guide covers the product side.
What a neobank's dollar account looks like on Lumx
Lumx is stablecoin payments infrastructure for businesses that move money between Latin America and the rest of the world: one API to collect, hold, convert, and pay out in BRL, MXN, COP, USD, EUR, and GBP or in USDC and USDT, over local rails such as PIX, SPEI, PSE, Bre-B, ACH, FEDWIRE, SEPA, and Faster Payments, with SWIFT and on-behalf-of payments and collections (POBO and COBO) in USD, EUR, and GBP, plus named virtual accounts, custodial wallets, and KYB/KYC built in.
A neobank creates each user as a customer, with the currencies it wants, and the user passes verification. Once approved, the user has a wallet and the accounts requested, and a deposit by Pix or SPEI converts to stablecoin in the wallet, either one on-ramp per deposit or a standing rule that converts everything paid to the same code. The standing rule converts at the market rate.
The neobank's revenue is the partner fee on each conversion, and the user's money stays in the user's own wallet, never in a pooled balance. Wallets are held by BitGo, which carries insurance, and each is fully segregated: balances do not mix between customers or with Lumx's own, and there is no omnibus account. The neobank opens named BRL and MXN accounts in its users' names without a local entity and without being regulated by the BCB. The global payments page shows how collections and payouts compose, and the coverage page lists current rails and settlement times.
Methodology and sources
The Nubank figures are from Nu Holdings' second quarter 2026 results report, filed as a Form 6-K with the SEC on August 13, 2026, and read on November 1, 2026 (SEC accession number 0001292814-26-004222, file nupr2q26_6k.htm). No other Latin American neobank's figures were read for this post. Partner fee mechanics, rate types and autoconversion rules were read on November 1, 2026 in the Lumx docs: partner fees, exchange rates, autoconversion rules and accounts. The fee example uses the docs' own illustration, and the usage figures are invented.
Verified on November 1, 2026. Operational context, not legal, tax, or investment advice.
Cover photo: Steve Matthews on Unsplash.
How do Latin American neobanks make money?
From credit, float on deposits, fees such as card interchange, and, on dollar accounts, a margin on currency conversion. At Nubank in the second quarter of 2026, credit was 41% of gross profit, float 34% and fees 25%. On Lumx, a neobank earns through a partner fee on each conversion in and out.
Do neobanks make money from card interchange?
Yes, but only a share. The merchant's bank pays the card issuer, and the neobank gets a part through its program, after the issuer and network take theirs. Many dollar account apps treat the card as a retention feature. On Lumx, the card sits with the neobank's own issuer.
How does a dollar account make money for the app?
On the conversion, not on the balance. The user's dollars sit as stablecoin in a wallet, and the app charges a fee when money converts in from a local rail and when it converts out to a local bank. On Lumx, that fee is a partner fee in basis points, a flat dollar amount or both, collected on each transaction into a wallet the neobank chooses.
How much does it cost a neobank to serve one customer?
Nubank reported about $1.0 a month per active customer in the second quarter of 2026, against $17.1 of revenue. A new app starts without that scale, and signups who never fund still cost an identity check. On Lumx, pricing is a monthly platform fee plus usage-based per-transaction fees, with no setup fee, so cost follows the volume the app runs.
Can a neobank earn without lending?
Yes, if it prices the movement of money. A dollar account app earns on conversion in, conversion out and the services around them, with no loan book. The margin is thin per transaction and grows with funded users. On Lumx, the neobank sets that margin as a partner fee, and it can be a customer without its own Central Bank of Brazil authorization.
