SoFi Technologies vs Nu Holdings

Two digital banks with identical moat totals (38) — and five points between them, on opposite sides of the success line. Nu Holdings pairs emerging-market growth with incumbent-beating unit economics. SoFi grows nearly as fast and is graded as the less finished institution.

The success line is 65. Demerits (section D) are subtracted; a demerit total of 15 or more flags a company for BlitzFailing watch. Scores as of the 2026 Q4 review (October 21, 2026).

Speed — growth with profit, against growth with questions

Nu takes speed 21–17. Its FY2025 revenue of $15.77B grew +37% (about +45% currency-neutral), extending eight straight quarters of 39–56% FX-neutral growth — and it does this while earning: Q2 2026 net income of $1.06B and a 33% ROE, with an efficiency ratio that has improved from 29.9% to 19.5%. SoFi’s growth is genuinely elite (A1: 8 — FY2025 revenue +35.1%, Q2 2026 +42.6%, members up from 3.46M to 15.81M in five years) but its scorecard records the market’s doubt in the same breath: FY2026 guidance holds EPS flat at $0.60 even as revenue guidance implies +32–35%. Nu also wins share velocity outright (A4: 4 vs 3): roughly 118 million Brazilian customers — about 60% of the adult population — make it the country’s third-largest financial institution by customer count on central-bank data, where SoFi’s absolute US share remains an estimated ~1% with unaided brand awareness of 9.6%.

Moat — the same total, built from opposite items

The 38–38 moat tie is an arithmetic coincidence over different structures. SoFi scores breadth: cross-buying at 51% of new products, 1.54 products per member, a 5.85% net interest margin and deposit-funded costs — a data-and-ecosystem 8 on network effects and a 10 on market size against a deep US lending pool. Nu scores depth of distribution: zero branches, customer acquisition that is effectively organic (about four million net adds a quarter), and a monthly cost to serve of roughly $1.0 per active customer (B2: 13, the highest in this series). Its B1 is the pairing’s lowest at 7 — the scorecard is explicit that a bank has no direct network effect and that Nu’s value comes from primary-account depth, with eight-year cohorts spending 2.2 times the average. Where SoFi’s moat is a product shelf, Nu’s is a cost curve — and the destruction section pays for cost curves.

Destruction and demerits — why Nu clears the line and SoFi does not

Creative destruction is the separator: 14 vs 9. Nu earns two 5s — C1, for replacing Brazil’s high-fee branch banking with a system where 52% of its customers received their first credit line and where it already ranks third by customers, and C3, for a unit-cost collapse that is measured rather than asserted (a 19.5% efficiency ratio against incumbents’ 40–50%). SoFi’s 3s describe a replacement that is real but still small in absolute terms. Remarkably, Nu wins despite the heavier demerit load: −8 (founder David Vélez holding about 74.3% of the vote through 20-vote Class B shares, −4; rising 90-day delinquencies at 6.9% and 85% interest-income dependence, −3; multi-jurisdiction regulatory costs, −1) against SoFi’s −4, which is a single unresolved item — the March 2026 Muddy Waters report alleging, among other things, misclassified charge-offs and an overstated loan-platform model, which SoFi disputes and which remains open on the card. Five points, in the end, is the rubric’s price for proven unit economics over promised ones.

How to read this

Both companies passed the same two gates before scoring: real product-market traction (G1), and a ten-year market ceiling of at least ten times current revenue (G2). The Blitz Index then grades speed (25), moat (60) and creative destruction (15), and subtracts BlitzFailing demerits (up to −30) for debt, revenue quality, governance and regulatory cost. The model is frozen at v1.0; past scores are never silently rewritten. Our own pre-registered tests found the score measures business quality — it does not predict stock returns.