Klarna

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Klarna Bank AB

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 2005
Seat Stockholm , SwedenSwedenSweden 
management Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO
Number of employees around 2,700 (2020)
sales 7.15 billion SEK (2019)
Branch Financial services
Website www.klarna.com

Klarna is a Swedish payment provider headquartered in Stockholm . The company offers payment solutions in the area of e-commerce . The core service is to take over the payment claims of the merchants and from this point to process their customer payments. According to the company, a total of 205,000 online retailers in 17 countries use Klarna, so that 85 million end consumers use the company's payment methods.

The company was founded in 2005 by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth and Victor Jacobsson. According to its own information, it employs 2,700 people (as of 2020). In Germany it is represented in Munich , Berlin and Linden , in Austria with a branch in Vienna . In 2019 Klarna had an annual turnover of 7.15 billion Swedish kronor (753 million US dollars).

Company history

The Klarna headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden
Klarna at the Online Marketing Rockstars Festival 2019

The three Klarna founders developed a concept for processing online purchases as part of factoring services, which they presented for the first time in 2005 at the Entrepreneurship Award of the Stockholm University of Applied Sciences. In this competition, however, their idea was not received positively and they landed on one of the last places. Nevertheless, in the same year they decided to found the Kreditor company in Sweden. At the end of 2007, venture capital firm Investment AB Öresund invested in Kreditor. In 2008 Kreditor started offering its services in Norway, Finland and Denmark. In 2009 Kreditor was renamed Klarna . In 2010 the offering was expanded to Germany and the Netherlands, and the San Francisco-based company Sequoia Capital joined Klarna as the largest sole shareholder. Klarna increased its sales by over 80% to 54 million US dollars (~ 392 million SEK).

In early 2011, the UK magazine The Daily Telegraph listed Klarna as one of the top hundred most promising young tech companies. In May 2011 Klarna took over Analyzd, which operates in Europe, Israel and the USA. The company specializes in risk management and online payments, and its founders previously worked at PayPal. In December 2011 it was announced that Klarna was able to collect more than 115 million euros after a new financing round. The round, led by General Atlantic and Yuri Milner (DST Global), served the further international expansion of the company. In 2012 Klarna started offering its service in Austria and Sweden. In May 2012 Klarna announced that the international investor Atomico could be won as an investor. Klarna acquired the German payment service Sofort in 2013 . Klarna therefore included direct transfers in its product portfolio and is known in Germany for so-called instant transfers.

In 2017 the company acquired the British payment service BillPay , which also took over the total number of 12 million customers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The BillPay brand is to be abandoned over time. The purchase price for BillPay was not officially named, according to information from the Financial Times it was 60 million pounds (around 69.5 million euros). Klarna bought BillPay from the Wonga company. The latter, in turn, took over BillPay in 2013 from the Berlin start-up factory Rocket Internet . In August 2017 Klarna launched “Wavy”, an app for free euro transfers.

Klarna has been cooperating with H&M since October 2018 . The fashion retailer invested around 18 million euros (share of approx. 1%) in Klarna. In January 2019 it was announced that Snoop Dogg could be won as an advertising medium and investor. In March 2019 Klarna announced that it would make its interfaces to bank accounts available to other companies via an open banking platform. Since April 2019 Klarna has been offering an authentication platform with various methods for user identification and, in cooperation with the credit card company Visa, offers its own credit card in Germany. Klarna has been working with the Chinese online payment system Alipay and the Dutch payment service provider Adyen since May 2019 to also offer purchase on account on the Aliexpress trading platform . Since July 2, 2019, Klarna in Germany can also be linked to Apple's contactless payment system Apple Pay . In May 2019 Klarna and Hood.de entered into a partnership that enables Hood.de customers to pay in installments or by invoice. In a financing round in August 2019, Klarna received $ 412 million. The company was valued at $ 5.5 billion. In March 2020, Ant Financial , a subsidiary of the Chinese Alibaba Group , acquired a stake in Klarna. According to Reuters , the minority stake should be 1%. Klarna has also been offering financial investments for savers in Germany since June 2020.

Business model

For consumers

Klarna offers end consumers the opportunity to pay for their goods ordered on the Internet by means of an invoice, instant transfer or hire purchase. When buying on account in online shops , consumers receive the goods before payment, which means security for consumers, but carries the risk of payment default for retailers. Providers like Klarna enable customers to purchase on account and guarantee retailers payment. With an instant transfer, customers pay immediately when placing the order. Then they receive their goods. The installment purchase enables consumers to split the amount due into several installments and pay them over a longer period of time. The Klarna installment purchase is no different from a classic installment payment. Here, however, the installment payment is not carried out via a third bank that works with a shop, but via Klarna itself.

For dealers

On the one hand, Klarna gives retailers the option of integrating invoices, instant transfers and installment payments as payment methods in their online shop. The company assumes the risk of fraud and default. This means that Klarna shop operators will pay the outstanding invoice amount if a consumer has not paid his invoice within the deadline. This also applies to cases of fraud. On the other hand, Klarna online shops offer a system - the so-called Klarna Checkout - in which the order can be completed with just a few clicks. If the end user has already paid with Klarna, details such as billing address or date of birth are already stored and no longer have to be entered manually. It is enough for consumers to enter their email address and zip code.

Criticism and problems with purchase on account

Since the seller assigns the payment claims to Klarna as part of the factoring when purchasing on account , the consumers take on the role of the debtor towards Klarna. Problems arose here in the past when the invoice from Klarna arrived earlier than a delayed shipment from the seller: "Anyone who did not respond, received - even without goods - a reminder that was subject to a fee".

In some cases, reminder fees were also charged for returns, provided that the processing or booking of a return took a longer time on the part of the retailer. In order not to fall into arrears, customers would have to "extend the payment period" or "pay" straight away. According to the consumer center in North Rhine-Westphalia , in this case “a 'reimbursement form' could later be filled out at Klarna”, but this practice “made the purchase on account ad absurdum from the consumer's point of view: paying for goods that you definitely don't want to keep. "

It was also pointed out that if Klarna did not pay in due time, consumers would contractually be in default without any further reminder and that reminder fees could therefore quickly arise.

In 2018, there was a "wave of fake emails" with apparent reminders from Klarna that contained dangerous malware in the attachment. Klarna then recommended that suspicious invoices be compared with the exact invoice listing of the respective customer account on Klarna.de or in the Klarna app.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wirecard and Klarna launch joint payment solution for retailers. In: manager magazin. March 12, 2020, accessed March 27, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Annual financial statement release. Klarna, February 24, 2020, accessed on March 27, 2020 (English).
  3. ↑ Gießener Anzeiger Verlags GmbH & Co KG: “Klarna” in Linden is growing and growing: 40 employees are to be hired. In: Gießener Anzeiger . Retrieved March 29, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Measure instead of Kölsch: Billion fintech Klarna moves to Munich. In: Munich Startup. March 13, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Klarna: Now also in Austria. In: e-commerce-magazin.de. Retrieved March 29, 2019 .
  6. ^ History. Klarna, accessed on May 12, 2015 .
  7. ↑ | FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved April 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ European Payment Service Klarna Raises A Whopping $ 155 Million From DST And General Atlantic , on techcrunch.com
  9. ↑ Payment processor Klarna fetches $ 155 million (the background) on excitingcommerce.de
  10. ↑ Atomico is a new investor at Klarna. e-commerce-magazin.de
  11. ↑ Klarna story. Klarna, accessed on August 12, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Pay with Sofortüberweisung. Retrieved April 9, 2019 (German).
  13. ↑ FOCUS Online: Rapper Snoop Dogg invests in PayPal competitors. Retrieved April 4, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Purchase on account: Klarna takes over competitor BillPay on heise.de
  15. ↑ Klarna app offers free transfers between friends. In: Golem. August 1, 2017, accessed November 13, 2018 .
  16. ↑ H&M takes a stake in the financial service provider Klarna. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. October 8, 2018, accessed November 5, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Wirtschaftswoche: Klarna: H&M joins the paid service. Retrieved November 5, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Rapper Snoop Dogg joins the payment service provider Klarna. In: handelsblatt.com. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Payment service provider: Klarna offers interfaces to the bank account - and passes on its technology. Retrieved May 28, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Hanna Behn: Klarna simplifies authentication procedures through one platform. Retrieved on May 28, 2019 (German).
  21. ↑ Payment service provider: Klarna issues its own credit card. Retrieved May 28, 2019 .
  22. ↑ IT Finanzmagazin: Klarna and Alipay implement solution for Aliexpress · IT Finanzmagazin. In: IT financial magazine. May 10, 2019, accessed on May 28, 2019 (German).
  23. ↑ Apple Pay now available for German Klarna Card users. Retrieved on July 2, 2019 (German).
  24. ↑ Marketplace Hood.de integrates Klarna / Cooperation enables purchase on account and payment in installments. May 14, 2019, accessed July 31, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Fintech: Payment service provider Klarna is worth around five billion euros after a new financing round. Retrieved August 7, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Europe's financiers are missing out on the billion-dollar opportunity. In: world. August 6, 2019, accessed August 7, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Katharina Schneider: Swedish financial services provider: Ant Financial imitates Snoop Dogg - and participates in Klarna. In: Handelsblatt. March 4, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Christiane Fröhlich: Klarna offers overnight and fixed-term money. In: Internet World Business . June 10, 2020, accessed June 16, 2020.
  29. ↑ Klarna - About us. Retrieved August 12, 2015 .
  30. ↑ Sofortüberweisung - costs and fees. January 2, 2018, accessed April 11, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Installment purchase at Klarna: How does it work? April 3, 2017, accessed April 11, 2019 .
  32. ↑ No risk - you always get your money with Klarna. Retrieved August 12, 2015 .
  33. ↑ Jochen G. Fuchs: Online shops: Klarna reinvents the checkout. Retrieved April 11, 2019 .
  34. ↑ a b Consumer Advice Center North Rhine-Westphalia: Sample of 30 shops for purchase on account: Liebling causes problems. In: press release. February 2, 2017. Retrieved May 14, 2019 .
  35. ↑ Online shopping with Klarna payment can quickly become expensive. In: RTL.de. September 4, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019 .
  36. ↑ Alleged Klarna bills. Fake reminders bring malware with them. In: Spiegel Online. March 6, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019 .