Sweden’s Klarna expands into U.S. payments market; names management team

Stockholm -- The U.S. payments market is getting a new player: Klarna, a Swedish e-commerce company focused on simplifying buying, plans to expand to the U.S. market in early 2015. The nine-year old company has an impressive track record in Europe that includes more than 25 million users and 45,000 retailers including Asos, Spotify and Zara.



To drive U.S. expansion, Klarna has recruited Brian Billingsley from Alliance Data as CEO of North America; former Bill Me Later and PayPal director Carol Hargrave as chief marketing officer; and former Apple payments counsel, Jin Han, as chief legal counsel for North America.



"We founded Klarna with the vision to simplify buying online. By putting the consumer experience first, we can make the mobile device a platform for shopping, and not just browsing," said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and co-founder of Klarna. "Across Europe, retailers who use Klarna have seen increased mobile conversion from a few percentage points to close to fifty percent on average. That translates directly into more sales for retailers. Now Klarna is extending that opportunity to the United States."



Klarna’s checkout solution separates buying from paying. A consumer making an online purchase enters only top-of-mind information like an email address and ZIP code to buy an item. From there, Klarna assumes all the risk from the purchase transaction, pays the retailer immediately, and collects the amount due from the consumer within 14 days.



Consumers can settle the transaction with any preferred payment method. The process is made possible by Klarna's proprietary risk assessment protocol. By using advanced data analytics and modeling, Klarna gives approved consumers a seamless buying experience and uses incremental identification to deter potential fraudsters.



"Klarna's 'buy now, pay later' approach means consumers check out quickly and don't have to pay until they've got the goods in their hands," said Brian Billingsley, Klarna CEO of North America. "For retailers, this means more successful sales and a guarantee that they will get paid immediately, whether or not the consumer reimburses Klarna."