The key points
- Klarna is a fintech active in retail banking born in 2005
- It closed 2021 with gmv at 80 billion euros
- In Italy, since October 2020 it has just exceeded 1 million users and is growing
The latest addition is the shopping app, designed to make the shopping experience as less complicated as possible and pay in installments even if the brands are not partners of Klarna. The path of the Swedish retail banking company began less than twenty years ago in a decidedly different scenario (where not only there were no apps but even smartphones) and made an important leap on the wave of technological transformation: it is born in 2005 and today it is active in 45 countries with 147 million users and one gross merchandising value of $ 80 billion in fiscal 2021.
The cultural conquest of the Italian consumer
Klarna landed in Italy in October 2020 with some partners and a dozen people in the staff and established itself by riding not only the tech evolution, but also a cultural transformation that the pandemic, in its own way, has helped to accelerate. While Covid-19 made online purchasing a practice even among the less technological segments of the population, smart payment solutions have taken hold especially among the youngest: “In Italy there is a low penetration of credit cards, for a certain aversion to accessing forms of credit – says Francesco Passone, head of Southern Europe at Klarna – and thus the possibility of deferring expenses made with any card, even prepaid, and without costs, in the face of a quick control of finances , has found fertile ground ». So today Klarna has 6,500 partners, a team of 200 people and an increasingly large audience: in mid-February 2022 the company announced that it had exceeded 1 million active consumers in the Italian market. “Italy is a less evolved market in digital payments than others – continues Passone – and has a specific weight that depends from brand to brand, but net of these considerations, the rate of use of our services is growing rapidly and is aligning with that of the United Kingdom “.
Brands and cross purchases, from Treccani to luxury
Fashion – together with electronics, design and beauty – is one of the sectors in which smart payments (the 3 interest-free installments, the “buy now and pay later”, but also the “pay now”: these are the services di Klarna in Italy) are spreading and establishing themselves with greater speed. Among the company’s partners (online and offline) there are different brands ranging from fast fashion (H&M, Alcott) to luxury (Santoni, Aquazurra), but also e-tailers such as net-à-porter. “For Italy we have chosen an approach oriented to the world of fashion and beauty at 360 degrees – continues Passone – but the purchases are very heterogeneous both in terms of product – ranging from clothing to Treccani, passing through the Dyson vacuum cleaner, by amount “. The success of this payment model, as often happens, is “certified” by the entry into the field of some big players in the e-shopping and e-payment sector: Paypal and Amazon. «We welcome competition of all kinds, we want to improve and extend the smooth shopping experience. Klarna was born as a buy now pay later operator but for us this was a starting point: we are a well-rounded company and we offer various shopping and payment tools ».
The shopping app – which today is used by 23 million Klarna users worldwide – is part of this growth path, shaping a personalized shopping experience (you can save your favorite brands or products, perhaps waiting for discounts or reductions. price, and join a bonus club) and also aware, since it also monitors the CO2 emissions of each purchase.