The Swedish payment service provider is growing rapidly. In 2020 sales were $ 53 billion.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
Frankfurt They don’t do it at Klarna under the “revolution”. On Wednesday, Klarna boss Sebastian Siemiatkowski announced the launch of a new “super shopping app” that is supposed to fundamentally “revolutionize” and “turn it inside out” online shopping.
“With the introduction of our new app, Klarna is becoming an end-to-end shopping service that meets many needs at once,” explained Siemiatkowski. In the future, customers should no longer pay credit card fees or high interest rates. Instead, the app makes it possible “to visit every online shop, save items, receive notifications about price drops, view shipment tracking, manage payments and returns and much more.”
What sounds airy describes an essentially interesting idea: If the Swedish payment service provider has their way, the new Klarna app should be a kind of meta-shopping platform on the Internet. For this purpose, the app contains, among other things, its own web browser. The users, so the idea, surf with this in different online shops, select products and pay – but everything within the Klarna universe.
A spokeswoman explains that customers no longer have to register individually on shopping sites. Instead, the customer data is stored in the Klarna app – and this fills out the input masks of the shops on command.
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Favorite products are therefore no longer stored on individual online pages, but in the Klarna app. This should then inform about price reductions for a product and also track the delivery. At launch, the new app will be available in 15 of the 20 markets in which the payment service is active, including the USA, Australia, Germany and France.
Temporary Visa credit card
The most relevant for Klarna sales is likely to be a new function that enables you to use your own payment services – including purchase by invoice and installment, known as “Buy now, pay later” – even in online shops that have not previously worked with the Swedes. This is made possible by single-use credit cards that Klarna issues in cooperation with Visa, as it is called on request.
In other words: If a customer wants to pay at an online shop who does not work with Klarna, the app generates a one-time credit card specifically for the desired transaction. The card is then loaded with the purchase amount and deleted after use.
In the future, the Klarna app will be equipped with additional functions, says Siemiatkowski. The Swedes only announced on Tuesday that they would take over the comparison portal Pricerunner. Four months ago, Hero was acquired, a start-up that connects customer advisors in real shops with virtual buyers.
Klarna has been growing rapidly since it was founded in 2005. Last year sales were $ 53 billion and the loss was just under 140 million euros. However, the internal processes do not always keep pace with the rapid growth: In October, the Handelsblatt reported on dubious debt collection claims and increasing number of complaints at the consumer advice centers.
Despite such problems, a possible Klarna IPO, about which there was no news on Wednesday, is eagerly anticipated. In the last round of funding, the financial technology start-up was valued at around $ 45 billion, making it the most valuable European fintech. Investors include well-known donors such as Silver Lake, Visa and the Chinese Ant Group.
More: Financial regulator Bafin warns against online loan purchases.