Inter crosses the double-digit NIM line — and starts paying for its own growth
Q2 2026 delivers record net income, a 16.3% ROE, 10.1% NIM and capital neutrality, turning the 'Rule of 50' into the base case.
INTR · Earnings Call · 2026-08-06
The Rule of 50 stops being a slogan
Back in May, at Owners Day, management unveiled the Rule of 50 as its long-term ambition. One quarter later it is no longer an ambition. “Total net revenue grew 32%. ROE reached over 16%. We are already executing the plan.” — João Vitor Nazareth Teixeira de Souza · 2026-08-06 The company printed record net income of BRL 421 million — its 13th consecutive quarterly increase — with ROE at a record 16.3% and ROA now "in line with some of the most established traditional banks in Brazil." Over BRL 100 billion in total assets, a record-low efficiency ratio of 42.1%, and three milestones in a single quarter: asset scale, double-digit NIMs and capital neutrality.The single most striking number is NIM: 10.1%, the first time it has ever crossed double digits. Management attributes this to hyper-personalization repricing (repricing BNPL, PIX credit and private payroll on the asset side, LCI rates on the liability side), continued deployment into high-ROE products, and a one-off inflation hedge tailwind that should be normalized out — roughly 15 basis points in both Q1 and Q2. More importantly, CFO Santiago Stel argues the structural expansion is bigger than it looks once you hold the capital structure constant:
Since the 60-30-30 announcement back in January of 2023, our NIM 2.0 has expanded 30% from 7.8% to 10.1%... When you normalize for that... the true NIM expansion is closer to 50%.
Credit: the deliberate trade-off
The credit story distinguishes this report from prior plateaus. Stage 3 formation rose because of private payroll — the largest single contributor to the yearly NPL increase, responsible for more than half of it. Management's defense isn't that the product deteriorated but that operational maturity is taking longer than expected: relinkage improvements are coming from Dataprev, a credit insurance launch lands in August, and self-managed relinkage is already underway. The punchline is that even at current delinquency the product earns a marginal ROE of roughly 30%: “We're solving for like a marginal ROE of around 30% in the product, and we're moving all the levers internally to converge to this number as we go.” — Alexandre De Oliveira, Executive (likely CFO or similar financial role) · 2026-08-06 Meanwhile, credit cards crossed 2% market share in TPV for the first time, with the interest-earning portfolio now 26% of the card book and product interest income up 64% year over year — and income rising faster than provisions. The write-off policy change for cards (360 to 330 days, aligned with Resolution 4966) shaved ~30 bps off reported NPLs with no cost-of-risk impact; “beyond 330 days, the recoverability of credit cards, in fact, is very low and trends to 0.” — Santiago Stel, Executive (likely CFO or similar financial role) · 2026-08-06 The coverage ratio settled at ~134% after a deliberate build toward ~146%; guidance is for 130–135% in the coming quarters.The BACEN debt renegotiation program is the other number worth weighing: BRL 100 million in renegotiations, roughly BRL 40 million of P&L impact (about half of which would have been realized another way), a ~10 bps NPL benefit, a ~15 bps cost-of-risk benefit, and a ~15 bps increase in Stage 3 formation. Net it is roughly BRL 12 million of EBT benefit and a cleaner balance sheet — a constructive read on a program that earlier this year many assumed would be a headwind.
Funding, fees and capital
The funding edge — credit cycle resilience driven by a cost of funding at 66% of CDI and deposits per active client of BRL 2,000.80 (+6% YoY) — remains the hardest-to-replicate moat and the engine of the flywheel. On fees, management was candid that growth has lagged NII and laid out a concrete re-acceleration path: credit insurance launching in August, subscription plans (One, Prime, Win), investment advisory for higher income clients, and the new Inter Ads layer. Private payroll credit insurance alone is expected to "reduce provisions and increase fee revenues," a meaningful improvement in that product's economics. And on addressable market, the refrain remains that Inter holds less than 5% of the credit exposure of its own primary clients — a small platform from a credit perspective with a big transactional base.The most consequential shift is capital. For the first time, the business generates more capital than it consumes to fund its own loan growth — capital neutrality reached even while growing 30%+. With EUR 2.3 billion of excess capital at the Inter&Co holding level, the Basel ratio reaches 19.3%. Combined with the NIM milestone, this flips the narrative from "high-growth consumer of capital" to "self-funding compounder."