Tinkoff, Russia’s Capital One

Plus: Indian Payments, Brazilian Private Equity, American Banks

Hi friends, welcome to another issue of Net Interest, my newsletter on financial sector themes. If you’re new here, thanks for signing up. Every Friday I go deep on a topic of interest in the sector and highlight a few other trending themes below. If you have any feedback, reply to the email; I’d love to hear from you. And if you like what you’re reading, please spread the word.

Tinkoff, Russia’s Capital One

Today, Russia’s Tinkoff is lauded as one of the best digital banks in the world. But it wasn’t always that way. In October 2013, the company had just gone public and at my fund we had become shareholders. Tinkoff was a leader in the fledgling Russian credit card market; founded several years earlier by Oleg Tinkov, a serial entrepreneur. Its growth prospects were fantastic and its valuation reasonable. Yet within a month its stock price was down by a third and over the next two years it would go on to lose 90% of its value. 

We didn’t stick around for the full duration of that slide.…