How the digital surge will reshape finance

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IN 2012 DAVID VÉLEZ tried to open a bank account in Brazil. “It was like going to prison,” he says. He was ordered to leave his belongings in a locker before walking through bulletproof doors. After waiting an hour, he faced a barrage of questions from a hostile manager. It took five months for him to be offered a bare-bones account costing him hundreds of dollars a year and a credit card charging an annualised interest rate of 400%. The next year, in the hope of eroding Brazil’s crusty banking oligopoly, he founded Nubank, a digital lender. By early 2020 the bank was valued at $10bn.