Klarna Group plc (KLAR)
NYSE: KLAR · Real-Time Price · USD
13.82
-0.13 (-0.93%)
At close: Apr 28, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT
13.84
+0.02 (0.14%)
After-hours: Apr 28, 2026, 5:08 PM EDT
← View all transcripts

Citi's 14th Annual FinTech Conference

Nov 19, 2025

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Buddy, thanks for coming. Day two of the Citi FinTech Conference. My name is Bryan Keene. I head up the U.S. research fintech practice here at Citi. We're excited to have a full day today of a bunch of executives and experts. We're going to kick it off first with Klarna, CFO Niclas Neglen, who is virtually buzzing in here through Zoom. Niclas Neglen, I don't know if you can hear me. It's Bryan Keene . Thanks for doing this.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Hi, Bryan Keene. I can hear you well. I can't see anybody here. Hopefully the tech works better today than it did yesterday.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Yeah, we were at the conference. I read the transcript and it seemed like there was some communication there. Yeah, we can see you great. You're coming in well.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Great. How are you today?

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

We're doing great. We're doing great. Welcome to your first conference, I guess, virtually as a public company here. Thanks for doing this. I was hoping maybe you'd start out, BNPL, obviously a hot sector right now inside of fintech, and you guys just coming into the public markets. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what makes Klarna unique and differentiation when you talk about your business and how you see it, the world, a little bit differently maybe than some others might see it in BNPL.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Great. Thanks. I'm happy to do that. If you really think about it, Klarna today has about 114 million consumers, going up 37% year-over-year. We've got 850,000 merchants, going 38% year-over-year. Actually, a record-breaking 35,000 merchants. I think it's really all about being a global business, which is what Klarna is all about. The key differentiator for us is we're much more than just buy now, pay later. Today, we've got around about 65%, about 65/%-70% of our volume in pay later products. Those are the kind of more standard buy now, pay later non-interfering products. We also have around about 5%-8% of volume driven by our Fair Financing cycle, which is growing really, really fast right now, particularly in the U.S. It's 244%.

We have also got Paying in Full, which is the remainder, so probably around about 20% or so. What we really are is trying to make everyday spending part of it. I think that's a key differentiator for us. We're looking to be relevant to all of our consumers in multiple different types of verticals, right? All types of AOVs. That is why we also have a lower average order value than other buy now, pay later players. It is all about ensuring that we're global, allowing us to serve not only 114 million consumers in 26 markets, but also supporting these 850,000 merchants that are really trying to expand their businesses from a global basis. I think that's quite unique for us. It is two things that we really point to.

One, being that M&A spending part of the consumer with a strong consumer brand. The second is being a global element, which is being able to help our merchants and partners continuously grow across multiple places in the business.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Yeah, maybe you could just talk briefly on the frequency of transaction, the ticket size, and then obviously the shorter duration of the loans.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah, sure. Happy to do that. When you think about it, Klarna really has an average worth of about $104, right? And that's pretty stable throughout, right? What we do is we have an average duration of 40 days. That's an extremely low duration, right? You really think about this. Many people use us almost like a charge Karlna Card, right? You spend during the week.

If they use that on a regular basis. Our average frequency is around about 10x- 11x a year. In our highly penetrated markets such as Sweden, where we have about 80% of the population penetration, it is obviously multiples of that higher. Germany, we have around about 35% of the population penetration there and also a higher frequency. People are really using us for more and more everyday spending. We see that particularly in Sweden now as we have been launching the Karlna Card and really expanding from being just online to being more and more offline. Today we are seeing, for example, in Sweden, even with the high penetration rates we have, an 18% like-for-like year-over-year growth in our volume, which is really driven by that Karlna Card. 70% of those transactions are actually offline.

We really are expanding beyond kind of our roots on online presence and basic buy now, pay later.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Awesome. I want to ask Niclas Neglen on the health of the consumer. Obviously, some concern out there on how the consumer is doing. You guys have a lens into this by country. Maybe you could just talk a little bit globally what you're seeing with the consumer health right now.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah. Actually, we're seeing a really healthy consumer across the board. There's not really any particular market that's standing out differently. We generally obviously have large portions of the population that use us, and they might be using us, use us over time for multiple things. I think that is a differentiator. We're not just a high-ticket player or where you kind of purchase a single large item for three months or something like that. Given the low duration and the high frequency of what we have, it really is you see general usage across the board and a healthy consumer.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

How do economic factors influence your business model?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Look, I mean, like anyone, right? We're all obviously impacted by economic swings and such, right? We do about $100 billion worth of volume last year, right? We grow at around about 20%. While we are large and in 26 markets, if you look at it, it's really the secular shift towards the digitization trend, the secular shift towards digitization of payments that we're really part of. I think that to some extent trumps the overall macroeconomic environment over time. We've seen that through the 20 years that we've been here with the cycles, right? I think the key thing again comes back to the type of business we run.

With our short duration and with our low ticket average order value, what we actually do is we constantly underwrite every single transaction, look at the consumers on an ongoing basis, understanding what they spend because we have the SKU level data that we collect on the vast majority of our transactions as part of our underwriting process. That really allows us to understand the health of the consumers that we're interacting with and ensuring that we manage that in a very sustainable and consumer-friendly way as well. Always to a thought of ensuring that we lend out responsibly.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

We've heard from a few fintechs call out a little bit of weakness maybe in the lower-income demographic. Have you seen anything similar?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

No, we haven't seen that at this stage, right? What we're seeing is a very healthy consumer. We've got a very broad-based group of users globally. What we're seeing is that they continue to spend with us. I think I obviously don't have the perfect answer to this. We're obviously a smaller portion of a much larger TAM that you see here of spending by consumers. We're really seeing a lot of engagement and demand for the types of product we have. We don't do revolving. We have short-term transactions, giving consumers a better opportunity to save money, but also to actually have more control of their finances. I think that's really what's one of the key factors that's driving the usage of our product set.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

I wanted to ask about the PSPs. Klarna is making a deep push to be the default option at payment service providers. Can you talk about some of the growth rates you're seeing in some of the PSPs? I know maybe the Stripe Link product, I know in particular is one that's launched. Can you talk a little bit about how fast Stripe was growing pre-default and now that it's kind of a default option what the growth rates are now?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

We do not exactly give out growth rates now that we are a public company about specific partners, but I will definitely talk a little bit about it. I think the key thing here is that we are a, I think this is a key differentiator for us. If you want to be relevant as a default on PSPs, you have to be relevant to the consumer in every type of purchase because you want to be an everyday spending partner. I think this is a capability that we are really able to bring. You couple the strong affinity that consumers have to our product set and the ability for them to do it to finance or pay in full and make a payment practically in every type of way they would want to. That allows you to be relevant to these PSPs as default, just like MasterKarlna Card or Visa, right?

For us, I think it's a critical element of our strategy, right? We've obviously started with Stripe and we're starting to ramp that up. It takes time. It's a multi-year progression here because they're obviously huge. We're constantly working to integrate with more and more of their merchants. I think Stripe Link is a great opportunity for us. As you've seen more and more places now with Link and the ability for us to be able to show the consumers there that we have the ability to participate in making those payments on those Stripe Links, I think is really key. We're seeing really great growth as well with Apple Pay and others. Overarchingly, the PSPs are taking up a larger and larger portion of the volume that we do, and they're growing in multiples of the direct integrations that we have previously, right?

I think it's a really, really core aspect of what we do from a strategic perspective. Super excited about the fact that we have signed a multi-more of these, which we talked a bit about yesterday, and that those are going to start ramping and starting to launch over the coming quarters. I think it's a big opportunity for us going forward.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

I think the mix was something like maybe 50% from PSPs and maybe 50% where you were going to the merchant direct. Is that roughly the breakout of value?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah, it's rough numbers, right? This is also scaling quite quickly on the PSP side. Like I said, we signed about 235,000 new merchants in the last year. That's a record for us. We are really, really kind of expanding with the PSPs. You also see the fact that we're now being able to have more of our products as our integrations with these PSPs on default get better. We've, for example, added about, we're now at about 151,000 merchants that have Fair Financing available to them, which again gives us an opportunity to kind of just continue to expand with the PSPs as well as with the availability of our product, right? I think that's a key factor that I think will give us multi-year growth potential here as we continue to compound and penetrate with these partnerships.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Can you help us, Niclas Neglen, with the timing of Nexi, Chase Payment Solutions, and Worldpay? When do those are expected to come online?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Into the coming quarters over 2026, they'll start coming online.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Okay, great. The Klarna Card, obviously a big number, I think 4 million was the number quoted yesterday. Can you talk about that Karlna Card, what it does for you, obviously moving into the U.S. and then into other European countries?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah, I spoke a bit about the Swedish part, but I think it comes back to, again, what do we want to be? We want to be an everyday spending partner. We want to be a neobank that allows you to do a lot more with us. I think that's a key center of our strategy. One of these is obviously then to go after the partnerships with the PSPs, which we're working hard on. The second strategy is really around getting the Karlna Card to be able to get that ubiquity. As Sebastian Siemiatkowski said yesterday, being live on the same number of touchpoints as Visa over time is really the aspirational target, or target is the wrong word, but aspirational drive that we have in the long- term, right? To be able to do that, the Karlna Card is going to be essential.

Now, what we really wanted with this Karlna Card was not just another credit Karlna Card, right? We wanted to be able to give people the ability to select debit or credit. You might remember that back in the old days when you were able to do that. You could actually go up and select debit or credit on the machines back in the day, right? What we want to do is be able to have this flexible Karlna Card allowing consumers to use debit when it's appropriate and use credit when it's appropriate, right? We continue to underwrite them in the same way. The point here is really allowing them then to be able to use the Klarna Card in the same way they've used Klarna with many merchant websites at the 850,000 merchants we have today, right?

I think bringing that to life, it's also then important that you figure out how do you kind of connect that to their daily lives. We have the Klarna Balance connected to it, which then allows consumers to receive refunds, cashbacks, etc. We've built it up with perks, which allows consumers to really then manage more and more of their spending with the Karlna Card offline, right? What we're seeing today, it's really, really early, right? I would really be cautious here because it is very early days as we're seeing it. What we're seeing initially is that consumers use us very much in the same pattern as with what we see online, right? Particularly in the U.S. right now.

What you're seeing is that we're getting obviously multiples of average revenue per user, frequency growth as well, but similar types of margins as we're seeing online. That is really how we're thinking about the Karlna Card. I think it's still very early. I think we're coming into the higher spending period. It will be interesting to see how the Karlna Card develops over the coming months and so.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Yeah, I was going to ask about how the Karlna Card makes money for you guys in different regions. Obviously, there's different interchange between Europe and the U.S. Maybe you can just talk about the revenue model for the Karlna Card and any margin difference.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah, so again, it will be like the interchange that you spoke about, right? I also think you have to point towards the subscription pieces that we do, the other types of services that we can build into the Karlna Card over time. What we're seeing now is an average Karlna Card user sees frequency increasing, sees average revenue increasing, and we're seeing the broad-based contribution margin from those or transaction margin dollars from those consumers to be in line with non-Karlna Card users as well.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Great. I wanted to get an update on Walmart. How did that ramp go into the Q3? Is that fully cut over all the volume yet or where are we on that?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah, yes, we're doing really well there. I think we're ready for the peak season now. We're practically fully up and running, I think. I think that's great. I think the point here I would make is, yes, we've kind of come online with OnePay. The relationship is really strong. I think it's going well. There's many more things we can continue to do. I think that ideation around how we continue to expand with them is very much going to be one of those things that are going to on-go for some time, right? OnePay with Walmart is clearly looking to expand and finding interesting new ways. We're looking to find ways to help them do that over time.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Maybe you could just touch on some of the other big merchant wins you've had this year and how it's flowing into the numbers. I know eBay, Emirates, DoorDash, any others to call out how that will impact or how it's impacting 2025 and into early 2026.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Look, I mean, overall, we're continuing to expand with them. I think the interesting thing is obviously we have the large ones here. We've got the PSPs that are driving a number of merchants as well. What I find particularly interesting with the large global partnerships, and I think this is something that's very unique for Klarna, right? We signed Airbnb a few years ago, right? We continue to expand with them. We sign eBay, depending on the market, the types of products we do with them, we can expand in multiple vectors, not only growing them through the penetration of their markets, but also growing the share of checkouts.

I think our unique approach here is putting our sales force very closely with these partners and working really on a daily basis to see how we can be effectively working with them to drive good outcomes for them and our consumers, right? It's all about driving that. These are really multi-year ramp-ups. Even though you say you're live and you've signed in a particular market, you see that growth over time. I think that's a really key element of what we do and something that's kind of in our culture and has been for the last 20 years and will continue to be so.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Great. You talked a little bit about the GMV split between paying full, pay later, and Fair Financing. I thought the quarterly results were really strong. It was a little bit of a surprise to see the stock fall the way it did. One of the concerns, or at least the headlines that came out, were some of the Fair Financing and how the provisions are taken upfront. Maybe you can walk us through the model as you've increased in Fair Financing, what that does to the transaction margin dollars and the provision for credit losses that happened during the quarter. What does the catch-up period look like as we go into fourth and into 2026?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah. Look, this was a very much unexpected approach, right? I think we flagged kind of the dynamics of this at the IPO as well, right? Reality is like we have been building and we want to be an everyday spending partner, which means we need to be relevant in every single category, right? Fair financing, there is a category that's significant around that, right? We have always been doing Fair Financing over the last 10, 15 years, right? Been building that portfolio both in the U.S. and elsewhere, right? I think what we've done is said we can accelerate that. We have been accelerating that very successfully. In the U.S., grew 244%. Globally, we grew 139% there. Obviously outpacing the market, but also outpacing our other products from a share perspective, right?

The dynamics around this is really, in my mind, appreciating that it's slightly complex, but it is quite simply the fact that you invest upfront by taking your provisions upfront, being prudent, which is in accordance with accounting guidelines, right? If I take a simple consumer here, right? You would basically book all of your potential for that consumer to not repay you, but you would recognize the revenue over the time that the consumer actually pays you back, right? On a six-month loan, obviously that is over that six months, you then have a compounding effect as you grow your revenues while you upfront take your provisions. That's what's happening here. We're growing our portfolio. As we grow our portfolio in the beginning, it takes time to build up that compounding revenue effect, right? Particularly at the speed that we've grown it.

We were very well expecting, and it was a known factor that we would be in the Q3 having more provisions, right? The revenue from those cohorts of volume are accelerating, right? Interest income grew about 48% while volume grew 139%. What we expect now is through the Q4, and we've guided towards that, that we'll see a transaction margin uplift in the Q4 as we continue to expand Fair Financing. The prior cohort volume is actually starting to then recognize more and more of that revenue through the Q4. That's really the baseline that we see here. I think I'm also really happy because we are expanding and we are well aware of that.

As we do that, launching the forward flow with Elliott is really a great way for us to find a really solid long-term partner that can support us and be able to continue to expand the growth of our Fair Financing product with the demand that we're seeing for this product, particularly in the U.S., but also globally.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Got it. Maybe you can just specifically talk about the provisions for credit losses in the quarter. You did definitely telegraph to all the analysts that this was going to happen, but maybe you can just talk specifically on that number. I assume the majority of that was due to the provisions that we're talking about from Fair Financing.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yes, exactly. If you look at it, and I tried to illustrate this a bit in the earnings call, right? You can find that on the Investor website as well. Ultimately, if you just took the realized losses, these are losses that are not related to the provisions. These are the true actual losses. They actually went down a bit as a percentage of volume from 45 bps - 44 bps , right? When you look at it in totality, and you look at the P&L excluding upfront provisions, you actually saw a 25% uplift in transaction margin dollars excluding upfront provisions. The primary driver of the $91 million of provisions is the Fair Financing acceleration, which was very well planned and known and understood, right?

That is really what takes you down to the transaction margin dollars of $281 million. It is really that that is the main driver here. The accelerating growth is what then is going to kind of lift that in the Q4. That is really when we compound all of the revenue from the volume that we have booked through the last few quarters and they start growing, which they will in the Q4. That is where we see that uplift in guidance to $390-$400 million of transaction margin dollars in the Q4.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

When you see the increase in the margin, the catch-up in the Q4 that you describe, how come we do not see an incremental impact from the new Fair Financing deals? Or what about if volume explodes even further in Fair Financing and why does that not dampen the margin in the Q4?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Look, I mean, we obviously have that in the plan that we continue to expand and grow, right? It's a question about how much of your prior revenue is being then recognized or your prior cohort or revenue from your prior cohorts being recognized into the Q4. I'll make it very simple, and this is a very illustrative example. Let's for argument's sake say that you booked a billion dollars' worth of revenue, sorry, a billion dollars' worth of volume. Over the life of those loans, you will recognize $100 million, right? In the Q1, when you've actually booked that volume, you will generate around, you will recognize about $40 million of that $100 million of revenue. You recognize 100% of your potential provisions, right, of say $30 million.

That Q1, it will look like you've made a net of $10 million, the $40 million less the $30 million, right? That means that you have $60 million of revenue left that you will be recognizing over following quarters. As those cohorts that we've been building compound, that number then starts outweighing even the growth of the portfolio, right? That is what factually happens, right? You've seen this in every single type of lending where you start in this process and then you start building that portfolio over time. Hopefully that explains it better, Bryan Keene.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

No, that's helpful. I always find those illustrative examples helpful. Can you talk about the impact of the model now from the offloading of using the forward flow agreement starting in the Q4?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I think this is an important aspect of it, right? Because we want to continue to expand, but we want to be doing so in a capital-light and efficient way to minimize dilution to shareholders as we continue to expand and take more market share. The forward flow allows us to do that in the sense that what you're actually doing is you're pulling forward some of the revenue by selling these loans on a daily basis, right? The intent is really that this allows us to give another avenue for us to be able to expand. What happens is ultimately that your revenue will increase. You will then have no provisions for those loans. Over time, you can then expand and compound like that.

That is a very standard approach that non-banks do when they finance these types of loans in the U.S.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Okay, great. How do transaction margins trend? We know the Q4 of the guidance. As we go into next year, is there even a bigger catch-up for Klarna in transaction margin?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

We're not going into kind of the forward guidance in 2026 until we finish 2025. Generally speaking, what I'd say is, look, we run the growth levels that we're seeing on an annual basis, both in volume, will over time also align themselves with transaction margins. What I mean by that is this is that as you mature your portfolio, you're going to see an acceleration in transaction margin. Then transaction margin dollars, when you get to a certain level of maturity over multi-quarters, right, you'll see a similar trend in volumes, revenue, and transaction margin just because you start getting that kind of holistic portfolio. Given the growth that we have, we have the capability to continue to kind of drive and mature this portfolio with a lot of growth potential.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Got it. And then just the last one, you touched on it, but just delinquencies overall. It sounded like delinquencies actually trended down a little bit for you in the quarter. What do you see as the outlook there?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah. Look, I mean, that is the forward-looking indicator that we look at on a daily basis. On a weekly basis, we sit down and we, as a management team, look at those things. I think the key thing for us is the trends are looking well. I think it's important that we continue to monitor those trends, right? We do do that. It's a part and parcel of what we've been doing for the last 20 years. As you all know, we've been around for 20 years and we understand how to underwrite these things. I think the key thing is to keep that forward-looking track. Right now, trends are progressing in line with our expectations. I think we just need to continue to stay focused on ensuring that that works, right?

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Got it. Sebastian Siemiatkowski has been very positive about the developments of Gen AI and the impacts it has had on the company. Maybe you can just talk about what you guys have done with AI and some of the benefits you guys have seen.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah. I think you've seen the customer service example where we've really leveraged it to drive productivity and efficiency for our teams by allowing the AI assistant to do more and more. I think yesterday we talked about 150 people's worth of work, or sorry, 850 people's worth of work that we are managing through the AI assistant at this point in time. Continuous improvement there. It really infuses everything in what we do, right? My teams, everybody is really, really working hard to leverage AI in everyday work, right? To just reduce the amount of kind of manual labor, ensuring that we can do analysis quicker, getting quicker answers on things, et cetera, understanding our systems better and ensuring that we can kind of drive that efficiency. From our perspective, it's really infused in everything that we do.

From my perspective, I'm always excited about this because reality is I see so much that my teams can do today that they would not have been able to do before at a much more faster speed. Whether that be writing commentary, looking at better analysis, and understanding really detailed level understanding of some of the things that we do within the business. It's just so much easier when our analysts are able to leverage the technology that we have and to be able to layer that technology on top of our own to really get better and better and better analytics that leads to better decision-making overall, I think.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Yeah. With that, maybe you could just talk about OpEx and what you guys are thinking the expense growth should be in the model.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Look, I mean, from our perspective, it's all about cost discipline. This quarter, we reduced slightly the amount of OpEx growth versus revenue growth. We're going to continue to kind of work on ensuring that we have a tight discipline overall, right? I think that's key for us. We are a seasonable business, obviously. We work very closely with our merchants and with campaigns and such through various parts of the season. Ultimately, it's all about managing and maintaining that cost discipline that we've been maintaining since 2022.

We had a chart in there that said we had grown revenues over 108%, but we've grown our cost base by about 2% in the last three years, which just tells you kind of the focus of the organization on ensuring that we'll continue to manage costs with discipline.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Niclas Neglen, can you talk a little bit about the deposit-based funding options for Klarna, how that might impact the model if you look at bundling, Balance, ACH?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Definitely. We got about $14 billion worth of deposits, which is our primary funding structure. Primarily, that's savings accounts. That is a very strong cost-efficient way to fund ourselves. I think it has been proven, we've been doing this since 2013 as a very, very robust model. We do always want to have every tool in our toolkit, so hence the deal with Elliott and others. I think from a perspective of ACH and balance, this comes back to that kind of being an everyday spending partner, right? If we now see people start using the Karlna Card more frequently as an everyday spending tool, we have the balance connected to that. That balance is now you're able to send your refunds, your cash back to that balance. Consumers can then use that, right?

What you're doing is you're bringing more and more of consumer spend into an ecosystem. Much like other financial companies, you then have the ability to fund yourself through a larger base of deposits over time, right? I think that's a key thing. I also do think that processing and servicing fees, particularly in the U.S., which is one of the drivers why you see that number increasing, is really about more of our volume being in the U.S. Ultimately, we're very laser-focused on figuring out how can we continue to reduce processing and servicing fees. I think the Karlna Card and the balance is part of that because consumers will then more frequently connect us to ACH, et cetera, right? Which will then help us to drive down some of those costs, right? Overarchingly, we're actually seeing in the U.S.

A slight reduction in our processing and servicing fees, but they are just a larger part of the mix right now, which is kind of why we want to continue to focus on processing and servicing. I think bundling is very important. We're starting to see some traction on that. It's something that we need to continue to do. We are very laser-focused on ensuring that we find new and innovative ways to leverage our ecosystem to drive lower costs, which then ultimately allows us to serve our consumers and partners better.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

We only have a few minutes left, but I wanted to touch on some of the other revenue streams. When you think about Klarna, how you guys drive commerce, transactions there, and advertising, can you just touch on those?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Sure. I think it's a really key point. We've talked about this before in the prospectus and a bit around IPO, but maybe just taking a step back, right? We obviously collect SKU-level data for purposes of underwriting. We've been doing so for 20 years. For many years now, we've started figuring out ways to leverage this understanding, subject to consumers' consent, et cetera, to help them find better deals, help them find better ways to save money, save time, have more control of their finances, right? What we've seen is a growth in our shopping app, particularly in the U.S., where it stands for around about 30%, 30%-40% of our volume, where consumers start their shopping journey on the Klarna app, right?

That obviously gives us the opportunity to be able to earn some affiliate revenue on that, et cetera, as consumers find what they're looking for, best deals, and so on and so forth, right? That is something we want to continue to develop, obviously. I think it's a differentiator again for how Klarna thinks about how we create value for the consumer and how we find ways for us to support them in their everyday lives. That is really a key focus for us as well, right?

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Niclas Neglen, I forget how many years you've been with Klarna, but maybe just as one of the things to wrap on, just how do you feel like the business is trending from when you started to now?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

I joined in March 2021. I think everybody remembers March 2021, right? Since then, I think ultimately, we have just gone from strength to strength. What I mean by that is I think we're a better operating system now. We have a very strong focus on customer obsession, on efficiency, drive. We're also, I think, very clear about the building blocks today of what we're trying to build, right? Which is really being that everyday spending partner, being that neobank. Sebastian Siemiatkowski talked about our objectives yesterday, but it really to me comes down to our focus on our partnerships with PSPs, Apple Pay, Google, Stripe Link, JPMorgan, Worldpay, you name them, right? Getting that default and being more ubiquitous there.

At the same time, working with large partners, ensuring that we help them expand globally, ensuring that we give their consumers the best product features possible, right? Getting the Karlna Card in every wallet, I think, is a key element of this, being able to expand and being ubiquitous. Because I do really believe that if you take those elements, couple that with having a full suite of our product set across all of our merchants, and at the same time, then leveraging some of the capabilities that we have around our bank account and such, right? I think we have truly got the ability to be that everyday spending partner and the next kind of large global neobank. I think it's been really interesting, and I think we're just going from strength to strength when it comes to that.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Last question I'll ask you is just on any kind of medium-term targets for Klarna and some of those key drivers I guess we've talked about today. How do you see kind of the setting up the medium- term?

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Yeah. Look, in the medium-term view, we have been relatively consistently, right, over the last 20 years, compounding growth, right? Particularly over the last few years, we've been growing at those 25%-30% annually. I think that is something that I would want to see us, and I see no reason why we can't continue to compound in that way for a foreseeable future, given those building blocks that I just spoke about and that we spent some time on, Bryan Keene.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Thanks so much for doing this virtually. That was very helpful, and we look forward to seeing you in person, but thanks so much, Niclas Neglen.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Oh, thank you so much, Bryan Keene. Sorry I couldn't be there in person. I'll be there next time.

Bryan Keene
Head of U.S. Research Fintech Practice, Citi

Yeah. Thank you.

Niclas Neglen
CFO, Klarna

Take care.

Powered by