Business

Brazil's neobank Inter confirms its marketplace's sales almost doubling at the end of 2021

Average revenue per active user also grew from a year earlier (18.3%) and the customer base expanded 93.4% to 16.3 million – relevant numbers for the fintech's plans to be a super app.

Softbank Banco Inter — Inter's headquarters, in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Photo: Courtesy

Reuters and LABS

22.Feb.2022 14:30 BRT

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Brazil‘s neobank and super-app wannabe Inter had a drop in profit (67%) in the fourth quarter of 2021, pressured by an increase in the provision for doubtful loans and in the expense line, showed the results released by the bank in the early hours of this Tuesday. On the other hand, Inter Shop, the marketplace strategy and flagship of Inter’s plans to be a super app, almost doubled its sales compared to the end of 2020.

According to the company, the volume transacted by Inter Shop totaled BRL 1.1 billion, well above the BRL 632.1 million at the end of 2020 – a confirmation of the operational preview released in January. Inter Shop is also Inter’s business card in its internationalization plans.

“What we are looking at now is the consumer finance movement: doing more banking and less banking. What does this mean in practice? Everything happens within a financial transaction,” explained Rodrigo Gouveia, CEO of Inter Shop, in an interview with LABS in April 2021.

During the last quarter of 2021, Inter reached 2.7 million active customers in the Inter Shop, 70% of which are recurring.

On the other hand, accounting net income fell 67.1% in the quarter, year-on-year, to R$6.4 million. This was due to an increase in the allowance for doubtful accounts (R$144.7 million, more than doubling compared to the same period in 2020) and in the expense line. Even so, the delinquency rate over 90 days was 2.8%, stable compared to a before and the immediately previous quarter.

In addition, customer acquisition cost rose 7.4% in the fourth quarter, year-on-year.

Inter’s total revenue, which provides financial services such as credit, investments and insurance and has retail operations, reached R$1.1 billion in the quarter, an increase of around 145% compared to a year earlier. Average revenue per active user grew 18.3% and the customer base expanded 93.4% to 16.3 million – numbers relevant to the super app strategy.

The expanded loan portfolio almost doubled in the period, totaling BRL 18.6 billion, against BRL 9.4 billion at the end of 2020.

(Translated and co-written by LABS)