Nubank's license advantage over Klar

The key advantage is that Nubank is moving from growth funded by parent capital into growth funded by local deposits and a wider product set. In Mexico, that changes the math of a neobank. A bank license can lower funding costs, expand insured deposit capacity, and open products like payroll and broader lending. Klar already lends and gathers deposits as a SOFIPO, but its ceiling is lower while Nubank now has more room to scale price, balance sheet, and product breadth.

• Klar today operates under a SOFIPO structure. That already lets it offer app based accounts, cards, loans, and investment products, but customer deposits are protected only up to 25,000 UDIs. Mexican bank accounts have much higher insurance limits, around 400,000 UDIs, which makes large balance gathering easier and cheaper.
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• Nubank got CNBV approval for a banking license on April 24, 2025, after applying in October 2023. Nubank tied that approval to product expansion in Mexico, and Banco de México later listed Nubank among newly authorized banks not yet in operation, which shows the approval was real but conversion still takes work.
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• This matters most in lending. Neobanks that gather more deposits can fund cards and loans with cheaper liabilities instead of relying as heavily on equity or wholesale funding. Nubank already has scale, with over 10 million Mexican customers by early 2025, while Klar was at a $252M revenue run rate in 2024 and still pursuing its own banking path.
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Going forward, the Mexican neobank race will look less like a marketing contest and more like a balance sheet contest. If Klar secures a full banking license, it can compete on equal regulatory footing. Until then, Nubank has the clearer path to turn deposit growth into cheaper lending, deeper product bundles, and stronger retention in Mexico.