Nubank improves 2026 efficiency ratio outlook as AI leads hiring slowdown

By Andre Romani

SAO PAULO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Brazilian digital lender Nubank NU.N on Thursday posted third-quarter profit in line with analysts' estimates, while improving its efficiency ratio projections for the year partly due to an artificial intelligence-led slowdown in hiring.

Nu Holdings, which has over 140 million clients and in September began expanding beyond Latin America, now expects its full-year efficiency ratio, which measures how much a bank has to spend to generate revenue, to land between 19% and 19.5%, below a previous expectation of around 20%.

"The biggest thing is that our pace of hiring was a little bit slower than we expected," Chief Financial Officer Rob Livingston told Reuters. "We are seeing significant benefits from AI helping us with our capacity and productivity, and so we slowed down our hiring," he said.

Livingston said Nubank's back-to-office policy, announced last year, as also rolling out slower than initially planned as the company is opening new offices in several cities, while stronger-than-expected revenue also boosted efficiency prospects.

Nubank reported $1.09 billion in net income for the July-September quarter, up 31% from a year earlier on a currency-neutral basis and matching the Visible Alpha consensus.

Revenue also came roughly in line with market expectations at $6.26 billion, a 37% boost. The 90-day delinquency ratio rose to 7.3% from 6.7%, a climb the CFO attributed mostly to seasonal effects and an increase in risk between late last year and early this year.

"We're not seeing any evidence of broad-based exogenous worsening in our portfolio," he said. "The increase is entirely due to management decisions and timing that we were anticipating," he noted.