Klarna was founded in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden with the aim of making it easier for people to shop online. In the last 17 years, technology has evolved, excited and transformed the world around us, yet Klarna’s mission remains as relevant as ever, to make paying as simple, safe and above all, smooth as possible.
Klarna is the leading global payments and shopping service, providing smarter and more flexible shopping and purchase experiences to 147 million active consumers across more than 400,000 merchants in 45 countries. Klarna offers direct payments, pay after delivery options and instalment plans in a smooth one-click purchase experience that lets consumers pay when and how they prefer to.
Online shopping has many points of friction, for both customers and retailers. Klarna’s payments services are designed to ease these points of friction. At a consumer level, Klarna offers easy tracking of orders; merchant funded credit; an enhanced returns offering and personalised marketing. For retailers, reduction in these points of friction result in better conversion metrics, and thus revenues.
Klarna holds a market leading position and whilst competition is increasing in the BNPL sector, the company is well-positioned as the largest player. Adding other services around its core financing product should increase the attractiveness of Klarna to consumers and boost conversion for retailers, thus making its app more valuable to both parties.