Klarna’s ambitions to dominate e-commerce 🛒; France’s all-in-one InsurTech🇫🇷; MercadoLibre goes crypto 😎
Good Morning FinTech, 25 November
Good morning Everyone,
And happy Thursday! We are almost done with this week. But don’t chill just yet, as there are 3 super interesting FinTech stories for today. Let’s dive straight into them:
Klarna’s ambitions to dominate e-commerce 🛒
The announcement 📣 The buy now, pay later (BNPL) heavyweight has just added a Pay Now option to its US checkout experience so customers can pay in full wherever Klarna is accepted.
Moreover, Klarna will soon introduce the Klarna Card - which lets users pay in installments in-store and online - to the US market “very soon.” The Klarna Card integrates into the Klarna app and is connected with its loyalty program, Vibe.
More context 👉 It must be noted that both the Pay Now feature & the Klarna Card is already available in much of the company’s European market: as much as 50% of Klarna’s European volume comes from PayNow, according to TechCrunch. And in October, Klarna brought Pay Now to the UK as part of its operational changes to mitigate BNPL scrutiny.
The Super App strategy 📲 The recent US expansion perfectly feeds into the BNPL player’s transformation from a payments platform into an end-to-end shopping hub. Or even better - a Super App.
One can remember that earlier this month, Klarna has launched its actual Super App, which consolidates everything from shopping, payment management, and support for products to delivery, and returns.
Adding Pay Now as well as its card expands its checkout functionality so US consumers as well can use Klarna for all purchases, whether they want to use BNPL or not. Obviously, to become a proper Super App, Klarna needs more features, but being this size it’s only a matter of time and strategy.