LatAm's Five Biggest Banks are All in Brazil

Brazil's big five banks hold a combined $1.5 trillion in assets. With inefficiencies of physical branches and outdated procedures, these institutions have been ripe for disruption for years. Venture capital has been flowing into the Fintech startups that promise to exploit these inefficiencies and capture an enormous market.

Last year was eventful for Fintech startups in Brazil — $3.7B of funding was raised. Latin America's darling, Nubank, went public and reached a valuation high of $54B, which was at the time higher than all of the banks on our chart. Through exploding growth, it now officially has more customers than some of the biggest banks (more on this on our 3rd chart).

Although the promise of Fintech has tremendous potential, it's essential to consider what it's competing with: massive resources and size. Itaú, the largest bank in Latin America by assets, has 17x the revenues of Nu and 15x the assets. BBVA invested $600M into Neon, another Brazilian Fintech, in a move to expand its retail banking operations. The move demonstrates the ability of these giant banks to deploy capital to adapt and compete.

Still, the Fintech sector is pressing on, with startups that promise to disrupt nearly every one of the big banks' operations.