Good afternoon. Welcome to the 2026 Annual General Meeting of Klarna Group plc. I'm Michael Moritz, Chairman of the company, and I'll be chairing this Annual General Meeting. I'm delighted to welcome you to what's a landmark occasion, Klarna's first Annual General Meeting as a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Whether you're joining us here in London or tuning in virtually from around the world, your participation in this meeting matters greatly to the board. I'm joined today in person by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, our Chief Executive Officer, and Niclas Neglén, our Chief Financial Officer, both also members of the board. To my left on screen, you see our board, who are also joining us this afternoon via Zoom from around the world, and we're grateful to them for making the time to be with us today.
I'd like to note that the company secretary has confirmed the receipt of proxy forms appointing a number of proxies, including myself as chair, and that a quorum is present in accordance with the company's articles of association. The time is now 3:00 P.M. London time. As the necessary quorum is present, I formally declare this Annual General Meeting open. Before we proceed, please be advised that photography as well as audio or video recording of the meeting is strictly prohibited. Anyone found engaging in such activity will be asked to stop or leave the meeting. I'd also like to make a brief note for those joining us electronically via the virtual platform. Please be aware that there's a short delay of approximately 30 seconds between what's said here in the room and what you hear on the platform. There is no delay if you're joining by telephone.
We'll bear this in mind throughout the meeting and pause when necessary to allow all participants to follow. Before we begin the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to note for the record that only shareholders and their duly appointed representatives are entitled to address this meeting, and those attending as guests are welcome to remain but aren't entitled to speak or ask questions. The notice convening this Annual General Meeting, dated 27th of May 2026, was sent to shareholders and made available on the company's website on 27th of May 2026. Unless there are any objections, I propose that the notice and all appendices thereto be taken as read.
Thank you. As there were no objections, we will proceed. The documents referred to in the notice, including the annual report and accounts for the year ending 31st of December 2025, and the directors' remuneration report, including the directors' remuneration policy, have been made available for inspection at this meeting and on the company's website. If you'd like to review a printed copy, please speak to a member of the Klarna team. I now invite questions or comments related to the specific business of today's meeting. For those attending in person, please raise your hand and wait to be called upon. When speaking, please state your name and the capacity in which you're attending, together with the name of any organization you represent. Please keep questions brief and relevant to allow time for others to speak.
For those joining us electronically, please submit your questions via the chat function on the platform. If you'd like to be heard verbally for any reason, please call the dial-in number provided on the platform. Please note that you may experience a short wait before being connected. We've received a number of questions submitted in advance. We'll address those first.
I move to Niclas to do so.
Thank you, Michael. We have received four questions. I'd like to answer them in order. If we start with the first one, I'll ask Sebastian to answer that question. One of the key things that people are asking is Klarna keeps adding large merchants, and the consumer base keeps growing alongside. How are the two sides actually reinforcing each other, Sebastian?
Hello? Okay, good. Just wanted to verify that. Well, Klarna has, for a few years, pursued a very clear direction of making sure that we have parity with Visa and Mastercard networks, meaning that we want to be visible and available on as many merchant checkouts as possible. This strategy comes through the partnerships of great big PSPs and acquirers such as Stripe, JPMorgan Chase, Worldpay, and many more, Adyen and others. That is what's accelerating and growing the number of merchants that offer Klarna as a payment method. At the same point of time, this means that more consumers see Klarna on checkouts.
One of the unique opportunities of Klarna is that people can sign up for Klarna directly at that checkout, different than card providers, which means that the more merchant checkouts offer Klarna, the more consumers adopt Klarna and start using Klarna and test Klarna. That's then growing the consumer base. That's kind of creating the flywheel effect for Klarna.
Thank you, Sebastian. There's a second question here I think is appropriate for you as well to answer, which is really, can you explain in simple terms why these partnerships, like the ones that we've signed with Stripe, JP Morgan, and Worldpay, are such a big part of our growth story?
I think it continues to what I already answered. Generally speaking, if you look at the fact that before Klarna had about 500,000 merchants, well, if you look at the Visas and Mastercards of the world, they're counting the merchants in, I think, almost 100 million now. In order to reach that scale, we realized that by doing direct sales ourselves was not going to be the only way. We wanted to create this distribution partnership with the major PSPs and acquirers to reach that. We have seen the acceleration, as we reported in the last earnings call, our merchant growth rate was 50%, and we have now reached 1 million merchants. We think that this is the strategy that will allow us to create that global coverage.
Great. Thank you, Sebastian. We have the third question, which is, how does the board explain the share price performance since Klarna's IPO? I thought I'd take that one myself. We don't shy away from where the share price is today. Since our September 2025 IPO, it hasn't matched the progress that we see inside the business. For fast-growing fintech and financial service companies, prices are often volatile and verge from the fundamentals in the short term. The underlying performance in the business, though, is very strong. Q1 showed a very strong start to 2026, driving every line of our P&L and compounding growth across our global network. Revenue and transaction margins each rose 44%, while operating expenses rose just 3%, showing the operating leverage in the model.
We now serve over 119 million consumers and over 1 million merchants, up 49% year-over-year. Adjusted operating profits grew more than 20-fold, from SEK 3 million to SEK 68 million. Operating income reached SEK 17 million, up from SEK 90 million loss a year ago, and net income turned positive, a rough $100 million swing on each line in 12 months. That is the trajectory that we, the board, are tracking on, our focus is really that.
We have a fourth and final question that had been submitted in advance. How is the board compensation structured to reflect Klarna's share price performance under the directors' remuneration policy? Klarna's proposed directors' remuneration policy ties the board's rewards directly to the company's long-term success, which is the key appropriate thing. It's set using the standard methodology of having our RemCo set it with independent board members. Each director's package is benchmarked appropriately against the market.
The executive directors currently hold options priced at a significant premium to today's share price, which means that they can realize value only once Klarna has delivered meaningful growth for the shareholders. Non-executive directors are aligned with the same principle, holding restricted stock units or options that track share price performance. The policy deliberately weighs towards equity, keeping the bulk of board compensation contingent on the value Klarna creates over time for you, the shareholders.
With that, we have those four questions.
Thank you, Niclas and Sebastian. We'll now move to questions in the room. Please raise your hand if you have a question, and we will respond. Thank you. We're also taking questions via our telephone dial-in service, and we'll now take those questions. Do we have any callers on the line waiting to speak?
We have no telephone questions at this time.
Thank you. We'll now move to questions being submitted on our online platform. The Klarna team present here in London will now read those out to the room.
We have no further questions from our online platform.
Thank you for your participation this afternoon. We will now move to the formal business of the meeting. Shareholders are entitled to vote either in person or by proxy on each of the resolutions being proposed today. Shareholders joining electronically may vote via the virtual platform. Voting on each resolution will be conducted on a poll rather than a show of hands. On a poll, each shareholder has one vote per ordinary share and 10 votes per Class B share held at the record date of 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time, 3:00 P.M. British Standard Time on June 12th, 2026. If you have already submitted a proxy vote, you do not need to vote again unless you wish to change your vote. If you do wish to change your vote, casting a new vote on the day will override your earlier proxy instruction to that extent.
Those attending in person will receive a voting card in the auditorium, and if you have not received one and would like one, please raise your hand and a member of the Klarna team will assist you. Now, a few words on the voting procedure. If you would like to vote for or against a resolution, or abstain from voting, please indicate accordingly. An abstention, which U.S. shareholders may know as a vote withheld, is not a vote in law and will not count in the calculation of votes for or against any resolution. If you are a proxyholder, please ensure you indicate clearly the shareholder you represent.
As noted in the notice and in the Chairman's letter, the board recommends that you vote in favor of all resolutions. Resolutions 1- 11 are proposed as ordinary resolutions for each. For each resolution proposed as an ordinary resolution to be passed, more than 50% of the votes cast must be in favor of it. For Resolution 12 to be passed, 75% or more of the votes actually cast must be in favor of it. I call upon American Election Services to act as scrutineer for the poll. I now formally propose the resolutions as set out in the notice of meeting.
I now declare the poll open and ask all shareholders and their duly appointed representatives who are voting in person to complete their voting cards. For those attending electronically, please cast your votes via the virtual platform now. The poll will remain open for 10 minutes.
[Break]
Okay. Thank you for participating again. Please hand your completed and signed voting cards to a member of the Klarna team, American Election Services, the scrutineer, will count the votes. Thank you. The poll is now closed. The results will be made available on Klarna's investor website at investors.klarna.com by the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the 23rd of June 2026. That concludes the business of today's meeting. Thank you for your attendance and participation, whether you've joined us here in London or virtually from around the world. As Klarna embarks further on this new chapter as a public company, the engagement of our shareholders is something we value deeply, I look forward to continued dialogue in the year ahead.
I now declare the meeting closed.