TikTok and Meta Eye a Bigger Role in Financial Services

The front door to financial services is widening to include social media platforms, marked by payments integrations and new movements into lending.

PYMNTS Intelligence data shows that consumers engage across multiple digital activities throughout the day, including communication, shopping and banking, often within the same device and session, which means that financial decisions are increasingly made inside broader digital routines. That change in behavior is giving platforms that control attention a direct path into everyday financial life.

The pattern is consistent across platforms. Payments establish presence. Lending builds on top of that.

TikTok’s latest push into Brazil illustrates the model. As we reported this week, the company has applied for licenses that would allow it to offer digital wallets, move funds and facilitate lending connections between users and financial partners. The move places both payments and credit inside the app experience. And it brings to mind earlier efforts in Asia, where its parent company ByteDance launched Douyin Pay to support in-app commerce.

Elsewhere, Meta’s exploration of stablecoin-based payments is designed to enable value to move within its ecosystem, particularly across borders, which would support commerce across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Payments infrastructure has historically been a precursor to credit expansion, because transaction data provides the signals lenders rely upon.

Other platforms have already demonstrated how this sequence plays out. In China, WeChat Pay and Alipay moved from payments into consumer and small business lending, using transaction histories to inform credit decisions. In the United States, platforms such as PayPal and Block have followed a similar path, embedding working capital and installment lending into merchant and consumer flows.

Commerce via Platforms

The lending opportunity depends on commerce activity that is already happening inside these platforms.

TikTok Shop has expanded rapidly in multiple markets, allowing users to discover products through short-form video and complete purchases without leaving the app. Instagram has integrated checkout features that allow brands and creators to sell directly within posts and stories. Pinterest has built shoppable pins that link inspiration to transaction. These experiences compress the path from discovery to purchase.

PYMNTS Intelligence data on influencer commerce highlights both the potential and the constraint. More than half of U.S. consumers have made purchases based on influencer recommendations, but most still consult additional sources before completing a transaction. That behavior suggests that while platforms can drive intent, they do not yet fully control trust, which becomes more important as transactions move from purchases to borrowing.

Brazil Paves the Path Toward Scale

Brazil provides a useful test case because the underlying infrastructure is already widely in place.

Digital payments are widely adopted, with roughly 94% of consumers using them as part of everyday financial activity, and mobile devices serve as a primary interface for commerce.

TikTok’s planned expansion into Brazil is a play toward inserting a widening berth of financial services into a market where consumers are already accustomed to managing money through digital channels and where social media usage is among the highest globally.

Distribution and Lending

The shift toward embedded lending changes how competition is defined.

Traditional lenders compete on pricing, underwriting and product features. Social platforms compete on distribution and engagement. They observe user behavior continuously, including how people shop, interact and transact, which allows them to introduce financial products at moments when intent is already established.