Nigeria’s financial services landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation that extends far beyond traditional banking.
The integration of financial services directly into digital experiences, known as embedded finance, is reshaping how Nigerian consumers interact with money, commerce, and advertising.
This evolution represents more than technological advancement; it signals a paradigm shift where financial services become invisible components of everyday digital interactions.
The traditional model of financial services as standalone offerings is giving way to integrated solutions where payments, lending, and financial products seamlessly blend into commerce, entertainment, and communication platforms. This transformation is particularly pronounced in Nigeria, where mobile-first consumers are driving demand for frictionless financial experiences that match the speed and convenience of their digital lifestyles.
Advertising technology plays a crucial role in this transformation by serving as the bridge between consumer intent and financial action. The convergence of fintech and adtech creates opportunities for Nigerian businesses to reimagine customer journeys, eliminate transaction friction, and build more sustainable business models around actual financial outcomes rather than mere engagement metrics.
OmniPay’s remarkable achievement of processing over N1.3 trillion in transactions in 2024 demonstrates the potential of deeply integrated financial services. Their Buy Now, Pay Later product, which now disburses over N19 billion monthly with near-zero defaults, illustrates how embedded finance can scale responsibly when properly implemented.
Enhancing Each Other: Data-Driven Embedded Finance Solutions
The convergence of fintech and adtech creates powerful synergies through data intelligence and embedded financial experiences. Advertising technology’s sophisticated targeting capabilities, when combined with real-time payment processing, enable new forms of commerce that blur the lines between discovery, consideration, and transaction.
Data-driven insights form the foundation of this convergence. Financial transaction data provides deep insights into consumer behaviour patterns, seasonal spending variations, and product preferences that traditional advertising data cannot match. When properly anonymised and aggregated, this information enables more precise targeting and personalisation of both financial products and advertising messages.
Embedded finance solutions leverage these insights to offer contextually relevant financial products at optimal moments in the customer journey. For example, a customer browsing electronics might receive a targeted advertisement featuring instant financing options based on their transaction history and creditworthiness. This approach transforms advertising from awareness-building to transaction-enabling.
Organisations like Pisi are pioneering performance-based advertising models that align marketing investments with actual business outcomes. Instead of paying for surface-level metrics like app installs or impressions, fintech companies can optimise their advertising investment around meaningful performance indicators such as registered users, activated users, deposited users, and transacting users.
This shift toward performance-based metrics creates more transparent paths from advertising investment to revenue generation. Nigerian fintech companies can demonstrate stronger unit economics to investors by showing direct correlations between marketing investment and users who complete valuable financial actions. This approach improves capital efficiency and enables more sophisticated customer lifetime value calculations.
The embedded finance model also enables new advertising formats that integrate financial services directly into the advertising experience. Instead of directing users to external platforms for transactions, embedded solutions allow customers to complete purchases, apply for credit, or open accounts without leaving the advertising touchpoint. This seamless integration dramatically improves conversion rates and customer experience.
Regulatory Considerations and Overcoming Infrastructural Hurdles
Nigeria’s regulatory environment for embedded finance continues evolving as the Central Bank of Nigeria adapts to innovations in payment services and financial technology. The regulatory framework must balance innovation enablement with consumer protection, particularly as financial services become more deeply integrated into digital platforms.
Data protection regulations present both opportunities and challenges for fintech-adtech convergence. The Nigeria Data Protection Regulation requires businesses to handle personal and financial data responsibly, which creates compliance obligations but also establishes consumer trust foundations that enable more sophisticated financial products.
Infrastructure challenges remain significant considerations for embedded finance deployment in Nigeria. Network reliability, mobile device capabilities, and internet connectivity variations across different regions require robust technical architectures that can function effectively in diverse conditions. Successful embedded finance solutions must be designed with offline capabilities and low-bandwidth optimisation to serve Nigeria’s entire population.
Payment infrastructure interoperability represents another critical challenge. Embedded finance solutions must integrate with multiple payment rails, from traditional bank transfers to mobile money platforms, to provide comprehensive coverage of Nigerian consumer preferences. This requirement adds technical complexity but also creates competitive advantages for companies that master multi-rail integration.
Regulatory compliance for embedded finance requires ongoing dialogue between fintech companies, platform providers, and regulatory authorities. As financial services become more deeply integrated into non-financial platforms, traditional regulatory boundaries become blurred, requiring new frameworks that address consumer protection without stifling innovation.
Leveraging the Convergence: Strategic Recommendations for Nigerian Businesses
Nigerian businesses seeking to capitalise on fintech-adtech convergence must adopt integrated approaches that view financial services as core components of customer experience rather than ancillary offerings. This strategic shift requires fundamental changes in product development, partnership strategies, and performance measurement.
Platform thinking becomes essential for businesses seeking to leverage embedded finance. Instead of building standalone financial products, successful companies will create ecosystems where financial services enhance core value propositions. E-commerce platforms can integrate lending solutions to increase purchase power, while service providers can embed payment processing to reduce transaction friction.
Partnership strategies should prioritise deep integration over surface-level connections. Successful embedded finance implementations require close collaboration between financial service providers, technology platforms, and merchant partners. These partnerships must address technical integration, risk management, regulatory compliance, and customer experience optimisation simultaneously.
Performance measurement systems must evolve beyond traditional marketing metrics to encompass financial outcomes. Businesses should track metrics that directly correlate with business value creation, such as transaction volumes, credit approval rates, default rates, and customer lifetime value. This approach enables more informed decision-making and demonstrates a clear return on investment for embedded finance initiatives.
Customer education represents a critical success factor for embedded finance adoption in Nigeria. Many consumers are experiencing formal financial services for the first time through embedded solutions, requiring businesses to invest in user experience design and education programs that build confidence and understanding.
Technical infrastructure investments should prioritise scalability and reliability. Embedded finance solutions must handle high transaction volumes while maintaining security and compliance standards. This requirement often necessitates partnerships with established financial infrastructure providers rather than building capabilities in-house.
Conclusion
The integration of embedded finance with advertising technology represents a transformative opportunity for Nigeria’s digital economy. Companies like OmniPay demonstrate that significant scale and responsible practices can coexist when financial services are thoughtfully integrated into customer experiences. This convergence will define the next phase of Nigeria’s digital transformation by creating more seamless, efficient, and inclusive financial experiences. Businesses that master the integration of financial services and advertising technology will establish competitive advantages that are difficult for competitors to replicate.
The future of payments in Nigeria lies not in standalone financial products but in invisibly integrated solutions that enhance every digital interaction. Success in this emerging landscape requires deep local market understanding, sophisticated technical capabilities, and commitment to responsible innovation that serves Nigeria’s broader financial inclusion goals.
The question facing Nigerian businesses is not whether embedded finance will reshape commerce, but rather how quickly they can adapt their strategies to capitalise on this fundamental shift in how financial services are delivered and consumed.
Gabriel Ferrer is the Chief Operating Officer at Pisi, a Nigerian adtech company dedicated to creating advertising solutions that bridge global technology trends with local market needs.
