这家巴西企业提供数字银行服务，估值高达100亿美元

巴西数字银行初创企业Nubank联合创始人克里斯蒂娜·朱奎拉非常了解目标客户群体。人们受够了现有的银行，她自己也曾是其中一员，后来找到了另一个选择。

“我在巴西的大银行工作过五年，结果只是帮富人变得更富有，”她对《财富》杂志记者詹·维茨纳说。“我想做很多改变，改善消费者的生活，但是一败涂地。有时我会想，你知道吗，我完蛋了。”

创办 Nubank之前，朱奎拉曾在巴西大型银行Itaú联合银行和巴西零售商杂志luiza旗下金融服务部门LuizaCred任职。

Nubank全名为Nu Pagamentos S.A.，主要通过移动应用程序提供银行业务，利率比其他地区银行高一些，还与万事达合作发行信用卡。该公司主要在巴西运营，最近扩展到墨西哥。目前Nubank有1200多万客户，估值超过100亿美元，是全球最大的数字银行初创企业。

据朱奎拉介绍，Nubank之所以如此成功，是因为巴西银行业格外需要颠覆。

“看看拉丁美洲，市场上的银行非常糟糕。我知道人们都不喜欢银行，但巴西的银行尤其令人讨厌。据朱奎拉称，“受虐数十年”的客户渴望Nubank的产品，所以自然增长很迅速。

朱奎拉认为，即使世界上其他地方的银行对客户没那么糟，类似的数字银行初创公司仍然具有巨大潜力。

“世界各地的银行业都在面临颠覆……消费者已经准备好迎接数字替代品，任何操作都可以在手机上完成，不必亲自前往银行网点。”

在颠覆银行业的道路上，朱奎拉遇到的挑战包括从风险投资融资等等，因为风投界对女性创始人仍然十分苛刻。她怀孕7个月时还要向投资人推销公司旗下A系列产品。

“可以想象对方的反应，”她说。“最友好的就是说，‘哦，我从来没遇到过孕妇来推介。’”不过她靠着韦雷斯在风险投资的丰富经验，成功地完成了该轮融资。她签字都在医院完成，几天后女儿就出生了。

“我希望让他们感觉到身为女性并不影响，”朱奎拉谈到女性融资如何克服偏见时说。“我全身心投入，为我的公司努力，这是我一生志愿。我愿意不惜一切代价争取成功。”（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

Cristina Junqueira, co-founder of Brazilian digital banking startup Nubank, knows exactly who her customers are. They’re fed up with the establishment—and before she launched an alternative, so was she.

"I worked for the largest incumbent bank in Brazil for five years, and I was just done making rich people richer," she told Fortune’s Jen Wieczner. "I was trying to make a lot of changes to make consumers' lives better, and failing miserably at it. And at some point I was like, you know what, I’m done."

Before starting Nubank, Junqueira served at Brazil’s giant Itaú Unibanco, and at LuizaCred, the financial services unit of Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza.

Nubank—officially Nu Pagamentos S.A.—offers banking through a mobile app, better interest rates than other regional banks, and a credit card issued in partnership with Mastercard. It operates primarily in Brazil, but recently expanded to Mexico. Nubank has more than 12 million customers, and is now valued at more than $10 billion, making it the largest digital banking startup in the world.

According to Junqueira, Nubank has been so successful because its disruptive approach is particularly needed on her home turf.

"If you look into Latin America, the incumbents are so bad. I know banks aren’t loved anywhere, but they’re especially hated there." Nubank says Brazilians pay the highest banking fees and interest rates in the world. According to Junqueira, those "decades of abuse" made customers hungry for Nubank’s offering, leading to rapid organic growth.

Even if banks elsewhere in the world are less abusive, Junqueira thinks digital banking startups like hers have huge potential globally.

“Everywhere in the world, the banking industry is being disrupted... Consumers are ready for digital alternatives, to do everything from their mobile phones and not have to go to a branch in their lives."

On her way to upending banking as we know it, Junqueira has faced the challenge of raising money in a venture capital environment that remains markedly stingy with female founders. She even pitched investors on the company’s Series A round while seven months pregnant.

"You can imagine the type of reaction that I got," she says. "The nicest ones were things like, 'Oh, I’ve never seen a pregnant woman pitch.'" But she successfully closed the funding round, with help from Velez’s experience in venture capital. She signed the paperwork in the hospital, days before giving birth to her daughter.

“I wanted them to feel that it didn’t matter,” Junqueira says of her approach to overcoming bias in fundraising as a woman. "That I was in, that this was my company, it my life’s project. And I was willing to do whatever it took to get it off the ground."