Fintech Monetization: a UX Balancing Act
Fintech apps have always been a place for experimentation. New features are regularly designed, tested, rolled out and, in some cases, rolled back. Often, when a feature turns out to be a success in one app, similar apps are quick to follow suit. Take, for example, banking apps like Revolut and N26 adding stocks and cryptocurrency features. Or investment apps like Robinhood and Trade Republic that have gone the other way and branched out into banking.
This stream of new features is the result of efforts to monetize fintech apps. With this in mind, it was almost inevitable that fintechs would eventually turn to advertising as a revenue source. From PayPal to JPMorgan Chase, many of the fintech giants have launched some form of ad venture in the past year or two. This trend borrows from the practice of retail media advertising, where retailers allow third-party brands to buy ad space on their websites and in their apps.
Amazon Ads is perhaps the best-known example of a retail media network. Someone searching for kitchen appliances on Amazon will see various sponsored products and brands appear amid the search results. The concept works because the ads are contextually relevant and served to the customer at the ideal time.
With the market for retail media networks growing faster than any other form of ad spend, it’s no wonder that fintechs want to get in on this lucrative business. But at what cost? Can ads be a valuable feature for customers, or are they perceived as too intrusive? Fintechs are walking a fine tightrope as they look for the right balance between relevance for customers, value for advertisers, and, of course, ROI for themselves.
Why are fintechs going into advertising?
Fintech companies are now attempting to replicate the success of retail network ad strategies in their own apps. For example, PayPal has been building out its own advertising platform, PayPal Ads, over the past couple of years. It also announced plans to launch PayPal Ads Manager in early 2026 — a service that will allow small businesses to generate revenue from ads integrated into their storefront.
PayPal is not the only one that sees the potential in this strategy. JPMorgan Chase announced Chase Media Solutions last year, a platform for brands to launch transaction-based marketing campaigns, while Western Union launched its Media Network. Revolut has also started to offer what it calls “tailored lifestyle ads” in its app.
Where retail media advertising uses shopping data like purchase history and recent searches to tailor ads and offers to customers, fintechs are leveraging transaction data. This data allows them to serve ads at crucial moments, such as when a user is at the online checkout or making a bank transfer.
Transactional data is a goldmine for brands
The idea makes a lot of sense from an advertiser’s perspective. To be able to target and personalize their ads effectively, they need data that tells them about consumer buying habits and interests. Payment solutions and banking apps have troves of first-party transactional data that can do exactly that. They know exactly who is buying what, as well as when and why they buy it. Unlike Google and Meta, which rely on proxy signals like search history and page likes to guess whether a person likes coffee, fintechs have the receipts. They can see that a user spends $25 at Starbucks every week.
Tapping into this data means advertisers can target their ads at the right people and the right time, rather than relying on potentially outdated assumptions. Let’s say you bought a pair of running shoes online. In the following days, you continue to receive ads for running shoes because the ad platform thinks you’re still in the market for them. With access to transactional data, advertisers would know you’ve already made the purchase and could show you ads for complementary products, such as sweatpants or fitness trackers.
In theory, this is a win-win-win situation: The fintech profits from selling ad space or taking a cut of the purchase, the user sees ads that are actually relevant, and the advertiser makes more sales. But there are some potential pitfalls.
How monetization could put trust at risk
Finance and banking apps are highly sensitive spaces. The critical factors for users are speed, clarity, security — and most importantly trust. Introducing ads into this space poses a number of risks that fintechs need to consider.
- Low tolerance for bugs: A buggy ad experience is annoying enough when you’re scrolling social media or reading the news. Buggy ads in a finance app would break trust. Even a slight delay in ad loading, causing the screen to shift and the user to click the wrong button, could drive loyal users away.
- Performance drag: Whether users are checking their balance, making a payment or managing investments, they expect their apps to respond instantly. If ads slow down the core features by even a second, users will switch to a competitor.
- Privacy concerns: As with any financial tech, privacy is paramount. Allowing advertisers into these private spaces can feel intrusive to many people. And while personalized ads sound great, users are likely to feel spooked if it feels like their every purchase is being closely monitored.
- Feature bloat: Many finance apps already contain a lot of features competing for attention. Where once you saw simply an account balance and recent transactions, now you might see stocks, cryptocurrencies, loyalty programs and more. Adding personalized offers and ads into the mix risks overcomplicating the UX and distracting the user.
Successful in-app ads require careful testing
Fintechs see huge potential in placing ads in their apps — but the stakes are high. To monetize their apps successfully without eroding trust, QA teams need to expand their testing strategy. There are three QA pillars that can help mitigate the risks:
- Real-world functional testing: Lab testing often uses perfect Wi-Fi and the latest devices. Real users don’t. Fintechs must test ads across a wide variety of devices and varying network conditions to check whether they are working properly and not affecting the performance of the app.
- Customer journey and closed-loop validation: Digital ads can only work with proper attribution to prove that the ad led to a purchase. This can’t be reliably verified with dummy data. Validating the customer journey requires payment testing with real payment instruments.
- UX research and sentiment analysis: Just because an ad works, doesn’t mean it is welcome. It’s important to gather qualitative feedback from real users to check how ads are received and whether they negatively impact the user experience.
Case Study
Successful Finance Self-Service Offerings Require Strong UX
Read how a global bank partnered with Applause to execute UX studies to check customer experiences and functional aspects of IVR systems, along with messaging apps like bots and chatbots.
In the race to find new revenue streams, the winners will be the fintech that can serve ads without breaking the user experience and usability that their customers expect. With real-world functional testing, in-depth UX studies and customer journey testing, fintechs are more likely to get this delicate balancing act right.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you monetize with confidence.
7 min