Building a full-service financial platform, not just a brokerage
No terceiro trimestre de 2021, a XP Inc. apresentou resultados que refletem mais do que crescimento financeiro — revelam a transformação de uma corretora em uma plataforma financeira integrada. Com lucro líquido ajustado de R$ 1,039 bilhão, alta de 82% em relação ao ano anterior, e receita líquida de R$ 3,171 bilhões, a empresa sinalizou que sua expansão em crédito, pagamentos e serviços bancários não é periférica, mas central à sua identidade futura. O momento levanta uma questão mais ampla sobre o papel das fintechs no ecossistema financeiro brasileiro: até onde vai a fronteira entre inovação e consolidação?
- O lucro ajustado de R$ 1,039 bilhão — crescimento de 82% ano a ano — confirma que a XP Inc. mantém uma trajetória de aceleração mesmo em um ambiente macroeconômico desafiador.
- A carteira de crédito saltou seis vezes em um ano, chegando a R$ 8,6 bilhões, enquanto o volume de pagamentos no cartão Visa Infinite atingiu R$ 3,3 bilhões no trimestre — sinais de que novos negócios estão ganhando tração real.
- A base de clientes ativos chegou a 3,296 milhões, com ativos sob custódia de R$ 789 bilhões, mas o crescimento trimestral mais modesto sugere que a empresa enfrenta o desafio natural da maturação de escala.
- O CEO Thiago Maffra reconheceu que as operações bancárias e de crédito ainda são incipientes, mas apostou no potencial de cross-sell dentro da base existente como o próximo motor de crescimento.
- A XP deixou de ser apenas uma corretora: a questão que paira sobre os resultados é se os novos serviços sustentarão os ritmos de expansão do negócio original — ou se representam uma reinvenção mais profunda do modelo.
A XP Inc. encerrou o terceiro trimestre de 2021 com números que contam uma história de expansão em múltiplas frentes. O lucro líquido ajustado chegou a R$ 1,039 bilhão, alta de 82% em relação ao mesmo período do ano anterior. A receita líquida cresceu 51% anualmente, alcançando R$ 3,171 bilhões, enquanto o Ebitda ajustado avançou 61% na mesma base de comparação.
A base de clientes ativos atingiu 3,296 milhões — crescimento de 25% em doze meses —, e os ativos sob custódia chegaram a R$ 789 bilhões ao fim de setembro, com expansão anual de 40%. Os depósitos líquidos do trimestre, ajustados por transferências concentradas de custódia, somaram R$ 47 bilhões, superando os R$ 45 bilhões do trimestre anterior.
O capítulo mais revelador dos resultados foi o avanço nos novos serviços financeiros. A carteira de crédito saltou de R$ 1,4 bilhão para R$ 8,6 bilhões em um ano — crescimento de seis vezes —, com prazo médio de 3,3 anos e inadimplência zero acima de 90 dias. O cartão de crédito Visa Infinite, lançado em março, movimentou R$ 3,3 bilhões no trimestre, alta de 55% frente ao período anterior.
O CEO Thiago Maffra reconheceu que banco, crédito com garantia e cartão ainda estão em estágio inicial, mas destacou o potencial de aprofundar o relacionamento com a base existente por meio de uma oferta financeira completa. O Net Promoter Score subiu de 76 para 77 entre junho e setembro, e a rede de assessores independentes cresceu 30% no ano.
O que os números revelam é uma empresa em transição: a XP não quer mais ser apenas uma corretora. A dúvida que fica é se os novos negócios conseguirão replicar o ritmo de crescimento do núcleo original — ou se estão redefinindo, de forma mais profunda, o que a empresa pretende ser.
XP Inc. closed out the third quarter of 2021 with numbers that told a story of sustained momentum. The company's adjusted net profit reached 1.039 billion reais—a jump of 82 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, when it had earned 570 million. Quarter-to-quarter, the growth was more modest, just 1 percent above the 1.034 billion posted in the second quarter, but the year-over-year acceleration was the headline.
The revenue picture reinforced the upward trajectory. Net revenue climbed to 3.171 billion reais, up 51 percent annually and 5 percent from the prior quarter. Gross revenue came in at 3.368 billion reais, a 50 percent increase from the third quarter of 2020. The company's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization—the metric known as Ebitda—reached 1.17 billion reais, 61 percent higher than the 728 million recorded in the same period the previous year, though down 6 percent from the first quarter's 1.245 billion.
Behind these headline numbers lay a business expanding in multiple directions at once. The active customer base grew to 3.296 million, a 5 percent increase from the second quarter and 25 percent from a year prior. Assets under custody—the total value of client holdings the company managed—reached 789 billion reais by the end of September, representing 40 percent annual growth. The company brought in 37 billion reais in net deposits during the quarter, though when adjusted for concentrated custody transfers, that figure rose to 47 billion reais, or roughly 16 billion per month. This adjusted metric exceeded the prior quarter's 45 billion, suggesting strength across both the network of independent financial advisors and the company's direct digital channels.
The expansion into new financial services was where the real growth story lay. The credit portfolio had ballooned to 8.6 billion reais by September 30, a sixfold increase from the 1.4 billion reais a year earlier. The company had structured this portfolio with an average duration of 3.3 years and reported zero delinquencies beyond 90 days. Payment volumes on the XP Visa Infinite credit card—launched in March—reached 3.3 billion reais in the quarter, up 55 percent from the prior three months.
Thiago Maffra, the company's chief executive, framed these developments as early stages of a broader strategy. The bank operations, collateralized lending, and credit card initiatives were still nascent, he noted, but the data suggested substantial room to sell additional services to the existing customer base. The goal, he said, was to deepen engagement by offering a complete and integrated experience, strengthening the long-term relationship with clients. The customer satisfaction metric, measured by Net Promoter Score, had ticked up from 76 in June to 77 in September. The company also added 1.188 new independent advisors to its network during the quarter, a 30 percent increase year-over-year and essentially flat compared to the prior quarter's 1.198 additions.
What emerged from these results was a fintech company no longer content to be a brokerage. XP was building out a full-service financial platform—lending, payments, banking—all aimed at deepening its grip on a customer base that had grown substantially in size and, by most measures, in engagement. The question now was whether these new services could sustain the growth rates the company had achieved in its core business, or whether they represented a shift in the company's center of gravity altogether.
Citações Notáveis
Despite being in early stages with bank operations, collateralized credit, and credit cards, the data indicates high cross-sell potential within our current customer base. Our goal is to increase engagement by offering a complete and integrated experience.— Thiago Maffra, CEO of XP Inc.
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
The profit jumped 82 percent year-over-year, but only 1 percent quarter-to-quarter. What does that gap tell us?
It tells you the comparison is working in their favor because last year's third quarter was weak. The real story is that they've stabilized at a high level—around 1 billion reais in adjusted profit—rather than continuing to accelerate. That's not a problem, but it's different from explosive growth.
They're pushing hard into credit and payments. Is that a natural evolution or a sign the brokerage business is maturing?
Probably both. The credit portfolio grew sixfold in a year. That's not incremental—that's a deliberate pivot. But they're doing it because they have 3.3 million customers already sitting on the platform. Why not sell them a loan or a credit card? It's cheaper than acquiring new customers.
The CEO says these are early stages. What does that mean for the next year?
It means the credit and card businesses are still small relative to the overall company, so there's room to grow them without cannibalizing the core. But it also means there's execution risk. Building a bank is harder than running a brokerage.
Assets under custody grew 40 percent year-over-year but fell 3 percent quarter-to-quarter. Why the pullback?
Market volatility, probably. Assets under custody is sensitive to stock market movements. A down quarter in equities shrinks the value of what customers are holding, even if they haven't withdrawn anything.
What about the deposit flows—37 billion in the quarter?
That's where you see the real customer behavior. The adjusted number, 47 billion, strips out the noise from big transfers and shows what customers are actually choosing to deposit. That's up from 45 billion the quarter before, so people are still putting money in.