Analysis: the capital line is doing the work the growth line usually does
The single most consequential sentence in this release is not the record net income. It is the claim that Inter has passed what it calls capital neutrality, meaning the book can grow on retained profit rather than on fresh capital. The published ratios are consistent with that claim but do not prove it. Risk weighted assets grew 19.4% over the year while reference equity grew 9.5%, which is why the Basel ratio fell from 15.7% to 14.4% even as the bank earned more. What changed in the quarter is the direction: reference equity grew 4.4% against 1.4% growth in risk weighted assets, and the ratio moved up from 14.0% in March. One quarter of that pattern is not a trend, and R$300 million of subordinated debt helped.
The comparison with a year ago is also a comparison of two different banks. In the second quarter of 2025 Inter reported funding of R$62 billion growing 30% and private payroll balances of R$728 million. A year later funding is R$77 billion growing 24% and private payroll is R$2.8 billion. Growth in the funding base has slowed while the asset it funds has been reshaped toward a product that carries higher margin and, on the company’s own numbers, most of the increase in delinquency. The cost of funding moved the other way, from 64% of CDI in the first quarter of 2026 to 66% in the second, so on the figures disclosed the margin expansion came from asset pricing rather than from cheaper deposits.
The rate backdrop cuts the other way and deserves attention when reading the next quarter. The Central Bank of Brazil’s Selic target stood at 14.75% at the start of April 2026 and at 14.25% on 30 June 2026. A bank that funds itself at a fixed percentage of CDI sees the absolute cost of deposits fall as the policy rate falls, but it also sees the yield on floating rate assets and on its own treasury book fall. Which effect dominates depends on the mix, and the mix here is moving toward consumer credit priced off spread rather than off the index.
What the disclosure does not settle is whether the private payroll delinquency is the transitional operational issue Inter describes or a durable feature of the product’s credit quality. The company has now carried higher than expected delinquency in that product for longer than it expected, by its own account. A careful reader would watch three lines next quarter: whether private payroll contributes fewer basis points to the overdue bridge, whether the efficiency ratio keeps falling as the expense base absorbs the larger book, and whether reference equity again outgrows risk weighted assets without a subordinated issue behind it.
What the documents say
Inter & Co, Inc. (NASDAQ: INTR) reported net income of R$421 million for the second quarter of 2026, the highest quarterly figure the Brazilian digital bank has published and 34% above the R$315 million it earned in the same quarter of 2025. Annualized return on equity reached 16.3%, an increase of 240 basis points year on year, and the company said it passed R$100 billion in total assets for the first time. The release was furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on 5 August.
What the earnings release reports
Gross revenues came to R$4.6 billion and net revenues to R$2.6 billion, growth of 29% and 32% respectively. Net interest income rose 39% year on year, which Inter attributed to the expansion of its credit book and to margin, specifically private payroll lending and higher credit card interest earnings. The company’s net interest margin measure, which it labels NIM 2.0, passed the 10% mark for the first time and widened by 105 basis points over the year.
Costs moved more slowly than revenue. Total operational expenses grew 19% year on year and the efficiency ratio came in at 42.1%, against 43.8% reported for the first quarter of 2026. That gap between revenue growth and expense growth is the arithmetic behind most of the return on equity improvement, since the equity base itself continued to grow.
Funding reached R$77 billion, up 24% year on year, at a cost equal to 66% of the CDI interbank rate. Time deposits led the increase, expanding 27%. Inter singled out its savings product, My Piggy Bank, which held R$10.3 billion for more than 4 million clients, and counted 9 million clients in its investment vertical.
Clients, engagement and unit economics
Active clients numbered 26.4 million at an activation rate of 58.3%, after 3.7 million net additions over 12 months. Engagement metrics moved with the client count: an average of 22 million logins a day against 18 million a year earlier, and an average of 32 million financial transactions a day against 26 million in June 2025. Inter reported a Net Promoter Score of 88 and a 9% share of Pix transactions, the Central Bank of Brazil’s instant payment system.
The per-client economics improved on both sides. Net average revenue per active client reached R$35.5, a 10% rise year on year, while cost to serve held at R$13.2, lifting the net margin per active client to R$22.2, up 16%. Loans per active client grew 11%, which matters more to the revenue line than headline client additions do once the base is this large.
Credit growth and asset quality
The expanded loan portfolio grew 29% year on year, a pace Inter described as three times that of the Brazilian market. Private payroll lending, the fastest growing product in the book, reached R$2.8 billion, against R$728 million a year earlier. Home equity, mortgage and credit card balances also contributed.
Delinquency rose, and the company was explicit about where it came from. In its own bridge of the change in loans more than 90 days overdue, private payroll accounts for 53 basis points of the yearly increase and the rest of the book for 12 basis points. Inter said the delinquency in private payroll stems largely from an operational process that has yet to mature, the product being new and its systems not fully optimized, and that it has introduced a new insurance product it expects to lower the cost of risk. Separately, a reassessment of the credit card write off policy produced a non recurring impact of 30 basis points on that ratio, with no effect on provisions or on cost of risk.
Capital position
At the banking level, Banco Inter S.A. reported reference equity of R$6,606 million against risk weighted assets of R$45,868 million, a Basel ratio of 14.4% for June 2026. That compares with 14.0% in March 2026 and 15.7% in the second quarter of 2025. The tier I capital ratio was 12.7%. Excess capital at the holding company was R$2.3 billion, up from R$2.1 billion at the end of the first quarter, after Banco Inter issued R$300 million in subordinated letras financeiras in April.
