Brazil's Nubank Sends Co-Founder to Miami to Take On Chime and Revolut in the US 🇧🇷
We're also covering LSE teaming up with Crowdcube on private markets 🇬🇧, Wealthfront's IPO filing 🇺🇸, a fintech founder's 7-year sentence 🇺🇸 & Stripe letting anyone mint stablecoins 🇮🇪
🇧🇷 Nubank Co-Founder Cristina Junqueira Relocates to Miami to Lead US Expansion
Brazil’s Nubank co-founder Cristina Junqueira has relocated to Miami to spearhead the Neobank’s US expansion after filing for a federal bank charter.
She will serve as the CEO of the bank’s US subsidiary.
The $77 billion company already employs more than 150 people in the US, largely supporting their Latin American operations. While Brazil still account for 107 million of its 122 million customers, with 12 million in Mexico and over 3 million in Colombia.
Early adopters in the US market are expected to be Brazilian, Mexican, and Colombian expatriates who know the brand, though Junqueira, who has overseen the Colombian and Mexican expansion, stressed the aim is to bring Nubank’s simple, no-fee model to a broader American audience.
“What I can say is we do expect a lot of our playbook to really be global, because when you think about the cost advantage that we’ve built over time, that should translate into the US market too,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg Live.
While Nubank is already competing with major fintechs such as Revolut and Mercado Pago in Latin America, it will have to compete with both local fintechs like Robinhood, Chime and SoFi and foreign players like Revolut, which launched a savings account product in the US last week, and Monzo, which withdrew its US banking application in 2021, but is now reportedly about to apply again given the more favourable regulatory environment in the US.
Source: Global Fintech Insider, Bloomberg & Financial Times
🇺🇸 Ex-Forbes 30 Under 30 Star Charlie Javice Sentenced to 7 Years for Defrauding JPMorgan
Forbes “30 Under 30” honouree Charlie Javice, who built the now-defunct student-aid startup Frank, has been sentenced to 85 months in prison for defrauding JPMorgan.
Prosecutors said Javice fabricated data to convince the bank in its $175 million acquisition that Frank had four million users, when in reality it had fewer than 300,000.
“JPMorgan Chase didn’t acquire a company. They acquired a crime scene,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Micah Fergenson as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein called it an “audacious criminal scheme” before ordering Javice to pay part of the $288 million in restitution, which includes $115 million in legal fees.
Javice, who was arrested in 2023 and convicted in March, broke down in court. “At 28, I did something that goes against the grain of my upbringing. Not a day goes by that I do not feel profound remorse,” she said, adding that she is “deeply sorry” and seeking forgiveness.
Source: Wall Street Journal
🇬🇧 London Stock Exchange Partners With Crowdfunding Platform Crowdcube To Let Regular People Profit From IPOs
UK Investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube has partnered with the London Stock Exchange to make private markets more inclusive and liquid.
The partnership opens the door for Crowdcube’s investor base to buy into private companies ahead of IPOs at the same level as institutional investors.
On the other end, the partnership gives later-stage Crowdcube companies a way to provide liquidity to employees, early shareholders, and retail investors without going public.
“Our objectives in partnership with the London Stock Exchange are clear: to make the UK the most attractive place for private companies to scale, as well as attract and retain the best talent,” Crowdcube co-CEO Matt Cooper wrote in a LinkedIn post.
The partnership leverages the LSE’s new Private Securities Market (PISCES), making Crowdcube a Registered Auction Agent.
Source: Global Fintech Insider
🇺🇸 Sheel Mohnot’s Better Tomorrow Ventures Secures $140M for Third Fintech Focused Fund
US venture capital firm Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV) just cloased a $140 million third fund, betting that AI-driven fintech will boost the sector. “About 20% of global GDP is financial services, and it’s still not digital enough,” co-founder and general partner Sheel Mohnot told TechCrunch. Mohnot leads the firm with NerdWallet co-founder Jake Gibson.
The new fund nearly matches BTV’s $150 million second fund from 2022. While the partners initially considered going smaller, strong limited partner demand kept Fund III at scale. BTV sees accounting as one of AI’s biggest opportunities as the sector struggles with labour shortages. They’ve already backed three accounting startups: Basis (which just raised a $34 million Series A), Layer (an embedded accounting platform for SMBs), and InScope (which automates audited financial statement drafting).
Beyond accounting, BTV expects AI to reshape underwriting, compliance, fraud detection, and customer support. Fund III will back 30 to 35 startups with check sizes from $500,000 to $3.5 million.
Source: TechCrunch
🇮🇪 Stripe Launches Plug-and-Play Platform for Businesses to Mint Stablecoins
Payments giant Stripe has launched a new platform that allows any business to create and manage their own stablecoin.
The platform, dubbed Open Issuance, lets businesses mint and burn coins freely while customising their reserves to manage the ratio between cash and treasuries.
William Gaybrick, Stripe’s president of technology and business, cited American Express and Amazon as two businesses that would benefit from allowing users to easily move between points, fiat currency, and stablecoins.
“If you’re storing balance or points on behalf of your consumers, or if you really want to store balance on behalf of your customers, stablecoins can be powerful,” he told Fortune in an interview.
The move comes as Stripe reportedly plans to apply for a federal banking charter to meet US stablecoin guidelines, according to The Information.
Open Issuance is powered by blockchain firm Bridge, which Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion last year. All coins issued through the platform will be fully interoperable with one another, enabling on- and off-ramping back into US dollars.
Sources: The Block, The Information & Fortune
🇺🇸 Robo-Advisor Wealthfront Filed For IPO
US-based robo-advisor Wealthfront has filed to go public. The 17-year-old fintech reported net profit of $123 million on $339 million in revenue for the year ended July 31, 2025. With just 330 employees, it manages $88 billion in total assets across 1.3 million customers. The company was last valued at $2 billion in a 2024 tender offer.
Wealthfront’s growth has been driven largely by its cash management accounts, which now hold $47 billion in assets, outpacing the $42 billion in its automated investment portfolios. The average customer is 38 years old and earns over $100,000 annually.
CEO David Fortunato, the company’s third employee who joined in 2009, owns 8% of Wealthfront, while founder Andy Rachleff holds 15%.
Source: Forbes
🇺🇸 Ex-Personal Capital & PayPal CEO Launches AI-Powered RIA to Make the Rich Richer
Former CEO of PayPal, Intuit and Personal Capital, Bill Harris has launched Evergreen Wealth, a digital registered investment advisor (RIA) aimed at affluent investors who want more than cookie-cutter ETFs.
The firm blends fiduciary advisors with agentic AI, promising hyper-personalised, tax-optimised portfolios.
Its flagship “Dynamic Portfolios” are designed to maximise after-tax returns through strategies like direct indexing and tax-loss harvesting.
Evergreen has also built Evergreen Intelligence, a proprietary AI engine that delivers personalized financial insights, with clients getting 24/7 digital access plus support from human advisors.
Harris spent six years as CEO of Intuit before leading PayPal, then founded RIA Personal Capital, which grew to $23 billion in assets and was sold to Empower in 2020 for $1 billion.
Source: Global Fintech Insider
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Chime has the most to lose here since Nubank is targeting the exact same demographic with an even more proven track record of serving underbanked populations at scale. The Brazilian playbook translates almost perfectly becaue both markets have massive populations frustrated with traditional banking fees and complexity. What's interesting is the timing, Chime is supposedly preparing for its own IPO while simultaneously having to defend market share against a global heavyweight. Nubank's 122 million customer base gives them data advantages and operational efficieny that most US neobanks can only dream about. The fact that they're leading with expatriate communities is smart since those users already trust the brand and can become organic evangelists. This could acelerate consolidation in US fintech way faster than people expect.