Nu launched in the U.S. through a partner bank model on Tuesday, with its partner being Lead Bank. The strategy allows Nu to start serving customers and gathering feedback early, while seeking full approval for a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Nu applied for a charter last fall and received conditional approval in January, according to the release.
After receiving conditional approval from the OCC, Nu entered the bank organization phase, which requires the company to satisfy specific OCC conditions and secure pending approvals from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, PYMNTS reported in January.
Lead Bank said in a Thursday post on social platform X that it will power Nubank’s launch into the U.S. as the company’s banking infrastructure partner of choice.
“This is exactly what we built Lead to do: help ambitious companies bring innovative financial products to market with the infrastructure, technology and banking capabilities to operate at scale,” Lead Bank said in the post.
The financial products Nu launched in the U.S. on Tuesday include a Nu Account that offers a yield of 3.5% APY on every dollar, a limited-edition metal debit card, a Nu Credit Card, dedicated savings goals with full and instant access to funds, and the ability to make local and international money transfers to Brazil, Mexico and Colombia in minutes with no fees, according to Nu’s press release.
Nu also announced in the release that it launched Nu Global, a multicurrency digital account for “people with global lives.”
Nu Global allows for fee-free, fast money movement across more than 35 countries. It includes a digital account in which all deposits are converted into USDC or EURC stablecoins, together with a virtual Mastercard that allows customers to spend anywhere in the world, according to the release.
Nu Founder and CEO David Vélez said in the release that the two announcements mark a milestone in the company’s “multi-decade journey of positioning Nu as the leading digital bank in the world.”
“Since our founding, we have believed that consumer-obsessed digital banking is the future of retail banking globally, and after proving this hypothesis with over 140 million fanatical customers in Latin America, we are excited to start executing our thesis beyond our core region,” Vélez said in the release.
