Klarna
Klarna is a payments company that provides shopping tools for consumers and payment services for merchants. Shoppers can use Klarna at participating online and physical stores to pay immediately or spread a purchase across later payments. The payment options shown for a purchase depend on the store and the customer's eligibility, with credit decisions made at checkout.
Merchants integrate Klarna into their checkout so customers can choose among the available payment options. The Klarna app helps shoppers manage purchases and track payment obligations. Deferred payments give customers more time to pay, but each purchase remains a financial commitment with its own terms.
Klarna at the checkout
The Klarna everyday money app helps people manage spending, payments, and rewards, with 120 million users and more than 1.2 million merchants reported by Klarna. The company started in Stockholm in 2005 and lists its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Shoppers can pay now, later or over time, and Klarna also offers a card and a balance account.
Klarna's bank license and its German roots
Klarna secured a full banking license in 2017, granted by Finansinspektionen, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. The license covers Germany through EU passporting. Klarna's German business goes back to 2014, when it acquired SOFORT, in Klarna's words creating "Europe's fastest-growing online payments group" (Klarna). Sofort let a shopper pay by logging into online banking at the checkout, the model PSD2 later regulated as payment initiation. Sofort was discontinued as a standalone payment method in March 2025, as payment initiation services describes.
Pay later and the consumer credit rules
Pay later and installments are credit, even when they cost the shopper nothing, and Klarna's bank license is what lets it grant that credit across the EU. The revised EU Consumer Credit Directive, which applies from 20 November 2026, brings more of these products under consumer credit rules. Buy now, pay later in Germany covers the rules, the invoice payment Germans are used to and the providers at the checkout.
KlarnaUSD: Klarna's stablecoin
Klarna announced KlarnaUSD, a US dollar stablecoin, as its first stablecoin. KlarnaUSD is built on Open Issuance by Bridge, a Stripe company, and runs on Tempo, a blockchain for payments started by Stripe and Paradigm; after a testnet phase Klarna planned the launch on Tempo's mainnet for 2026 (Klarna). Klarna presents stablecoins as a way to cut the cost of cross-border payments for shoppers and merchants. Stablecoin payments covers how such a payment works and how MiCA treats a dollar token in the EU.
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Payments & Digital Money
Risk & Compliance
Is Klarna a bank?
Yes. Klarna Bank AB has held a full banking license from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority since 2017, and the license covers Germany through EU passporting.
What happened to Sofort?
Klarna bought SOFORT in 2014. Sofort started a bank transfer for the shopper at the checkout and was discontinued as a standalone payment method in March 2025.
What is KlarnaUSD?
KlarnaUSD is Klarna's US dollar stablecoin, built on Bridge's Open Issuance and running on the Tempo blockchain. Klarna described itself as the first bank to launch a stablecoin on Tempo.
Checkout, credit and stablecoins
Klarna and Finance Loop
Finance Loop covers buy now, pay later, payment initiation and stablecoin payments in its Payments & Digital Money track.
Partnership managers expanding installment-payment distribution can approach Finance Loop to discuss exchanges with relevant merchant and banking audiences. A brief for payments partnerships should identify the merchant relationships and local conversations your company wants to develop.
Finance Loop is a European professional network for emerging technologies in finance, with Central Europe as the current regional focus. Finance Loop helps members build skills and professional relationships across these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.