Nu Global Taps Sygnum for Stablecoin Custody as Brazil Tightens Cross-Border Crypto Rules

Nu, the Nubank-owned digital bank that is Latin America's largest with more than 140 million customers across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, has partnered with Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum to power Nu Global, a multi-currency account it launched on September 10 alongside its expansion into the United States.

Nu Global lets customers hold and trade stablecoins and cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum, transfer funds across more than 35 countries, and earn yield on digital dollar (USDC) and digital euro (EURC) balances, with Sygnum supplying the custody, trading and fiat-to-crypto conversion infrastructure behind the product.

Nu Global is offered through Nu Global AG, a Swiss entity under Nu Holdings, Nubank's parent company. It pairs a Mastercard-branded virtual card with stablecoin holdings, and Sygnum provides a bank guarantee covering customer assets under Swiss banking law, according to a joint press release from the two companies on Thursday.

Fritz Jost, Sygnum's chief B2B officer, said the partnership combines "Nu's customer-centric approach and international reach with Sygnum's regulated banking infrastructure." Thomaz Fortes, general manager of Nu Global AG, called it a step in "introducing our customer-first approach to new audiences through international money management."

The launch lands as Brazil's central bank, the Banco Central do Brasil, moves the opposite way at home. Resolution BCB 561, published April 30 and taking effect October 1, bars regulated electronic FX (eFX) providers, the licensed payment firms Brazilians use for cross-border transfers, from settling the offshore leg of those transactions in stablecoins or other cryptoassets, a practice firms including Nomad and Braza Bank had built into their operations. Brazil's federal tax authority estimates stablecoins account for roughly 90% of the $6 billion to $8 billion in monthly crypto volume moving through the country, per data reported by CoinDesk. Licensed banks and virtual asset service providers are exempt under a separate framework, Resolution BCB 521, so Nu itself is not directly affected by the October rule. But the contrast still holds: the eFX firms losing their stablecoin settlement rails are exactly the kind of infrastructure Nu is now building for its own customers, just booked through a Swiss entity rather than a Brazilian one.