Inter CFO talks Rule of 50, U.S. expansion: says discipline is paying off

Investing.com -- Four years after listing on the NASDAQ with a bet that disciplined, profitable growth would outlast fintech's growth-at-all-costs model, Inter & Co. believes that bet is paying off, and the company's next chapter is already taking shape, according to Chief Financial Officer Santiago Stel, who recently spoke with Investing.com about where the Brazilian digital bank goes from here.

The company has grown from 18 million customers at its 2022 listing to more than 44 million today, with 2025 profits hitting a record.

Inter recently opened a U.S. banking branch in Miami, authorized by the Federal Reserve and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, placing it among a limited group of foreign banking organizations permitted to maintain a banking presence in the United States.

Stel said much of that trajectory traces back to conversations with U.S. investors after the NASDAQ listing, which helped shape Inter's newest strategic framework, the "Rule of 50."

The plan targets combined annual revenue growth and return on equity of at least 50%, with a longer-term ROE goal of 28% to 30% by 2029. Crucially, Stel said, the framework isn't rigid about how that 50% is split.

"If macroeconomic pressures squeeze margins, we will prioritize profitability and asset quality over accelerated top-line growth," he stated, adding that Inter's flexibility comes from a credit book split roughly two-thirds secured and one-third unsecured, anchored in private payroll and real estate lending.

"This discipline is already showing up in the numbers — our risk-adjusted NIM expanded from 3.9% to 5.9% even as the macro backdrop got tougher," he said. "On top of that, our revenue streams are supported by a deeply diversified fee base spanning investments, insurance, and our shopping platform."

On how Inter stacks up against competitors such as Nubank and Wise, Stel pointed to funding costs as an edge that's difficult to replicate.

Inter's cost of funding sits at 64% of Brazil's benchmark CDI rate, with a loan-to-deposit ratio near 80%.

Funding reached 74 billion reais in the first quarter of 2026, up 25% year-over-year, supported by a deposit franchise that now processes 8% of all Pix transactions in Brazil and roughly 1 billion financial transactions a month.

"This level of cross-selling and principality, underpinned by a structurally lower cost of capital, is extremely difficult for monoline or pure-play digital accounts to replicate," Stel argued.

He described the Miami branch approval as one of the most significant regulatory milestones in Inter's history, calling the U.S. banking landscape "notoriously rigorous" to navigate.

Story Continues

Rather than chasing broad U.S. retail market share, he said, the branch is meant to serve Brazilian, Argentine and other international clients with remittances, cards, mortgages and brokerage access, while also lowering Inter's overall funding costs.

Looking to the second half of the year, Stel pointed to continued scaling of Inter's private payroll lending product, which reached a 2.5 billion-real portfolio and roughly 600,000 clients within about a year, with a goal of doubling market share by 2029.

He also highlighted Inter's AI platform, Seven, which he said helped lift the efficiency ratio to 43% in the first quarter, with gross revenue per client of 57 reais against a cost-to-serve of just 13.1 reais, a gap he said still has room to widen without adding headcount.

Finally, he highlighted the overall progress on the Rule of 50, stating that it "now guides the business for the next three years."

"Reaching that ROE target will be a challenging climb given current macro headwinds, but we have the levers: repricing the loan book, optimizing funding costs, and leaning into secured portfolios to drive risk-adjusted returns," concluded the CFO.

Related articles

Inter CFO talks Rule of 50, U.S. expansion: says discipline is paying off

These 2 stocks are best positioned to benefit from higher uranium prices: analyst

5 reasons why Jefferies thinks Meta's pullback is a buying opportunity

View Comments