⚠ The Collateral Only Works While the Merchant StaysModerate threat
StoneCo (STNE) — threat to the moat
Receivables secure the loan, and a merchant who quietly shifts volume to a second terminal thins the security without triggering anything.
The rebuilt credit product is secured on the merchant's future card receivables, which is what makes it defensible: StoneCo lends against money it will itself be collecting, and it can take repayment out of the flow before the merchant ever sees it.
That works beautifully for as long as the flow runs through StoneCo. It stops working the moment the merchant starts routing volume elsewhere — and Brazilian merchants routinely use several acquirers at once, which is why the market-share figures published for the industry add up to considerably more than a hundred percent. A merchant with three terminals can quietly shift the mix without cancelling anything, and the security behind the loan thins without any event that would trigger a review.
There is a second version of the same problem. Pix volume does not settle as a card receivable, so the more a merchant's sales migrate to the instant-payment rail, the smaller the pool of receivables available to secure lending against that merchant's business.
StoneCo's protection is that its credit customers are disproportionately its banking customers — more than 3.6 million banking active clients, the majority of them also payment clients1 — and a merchant whose deposits, payroll and working capital all sit in one place is doing something much harder than switching a terminal.
The number that tests it is the share of credit outstanding to clients who also hold a StoneCo deposit account. Credit extended to a pure payments client is secured by a relationship the merchant can dilute in an afternoon.
- ReportedStoneCo reported more than 3.6 million banking active clients, the majority of whom are also payment clients.StoneCo Ltd. Form 20-F for FY2025 (CIK 1745431) — active payment clients of 4,803.5 thousand at 31 December 2025, against 4,172.7 thousand in 2024 and 3,522.1 thousand in 2023; TPV of R$560.9 billion, against R$516.2 billion and R$438.3 billion; revenue of R$14,153.8 million and adjusted net income from continuing operations of R$2,477.2 million; more than 3.6 million banking active clients, the majority of whom are also payment clients; retail deposits of R$11,091.0 million against R$8,704.8 million and R$6,119.5 million; a credit portfolio of R$2,836 million with expected credit losses of R$389.7 million, against R$1,207.6 million and R$144.5 million a year earlier; clients divided into MSMBs (micro-merchants and SMBs) and Key Accounts, 'comprised of platform services and sub-acquirers'; StoneCo became in 2017 the first non-banking entity authorised by the Central Bank to operate as an Acquirer through a payments-institution licence, and is among the six largest players by total card volume per ABECS; distribution through proprietary and franchised hubs sold on 'service differentiation as the main driver', digital channels, and more than 500 Strategic Partners at December 2025; per the Central Bank, Pix's share of the total number of transactions rose from 1% in Q4 2020 to 52% in H1 2025 and its share of monetary volume from 1% to more than 26%; the filing warns that 'the concentration of our clients by geography and economic sector may increase our risk' and that the company experiences churn from business closures and account transfers; interest rates directly affect both revenue generation and cost of funds, most third-party funding being linked to the Brazilian interbank rate; StoneCo's own analysis notes that US MSMB take rates have been stable over five years despite penetration around 120% of consumption, and finds no indication of saturation-driven price reductions in Brazilian cities with low cash usage — FY2025 · publ. 2026 · source ↗