Klarna’s loss halves as Swedish fintech plots return to profit

Klarna halved its losses in the first quarter as the Swedish buy now, pay later pioneer said it was on course to return to profit by the end of the year.

Once Europe’s most valuable private tech company, Klarna said on Friday that its net loss narrowed to 1.3 billion Swedish krona (€111.8 million) in the quarter as the group’s credit losses shrank by more than a third. Its revenues climbed 13 per cent to 4.9 billion krona.

Klarna became a symbol of the boom and bust in the fintech sector as its valuation was slashed from $46 billion (€42.8 billion) to $6.7 billion last year, prompting the group to retrench and cut jobs.

Founded in 2005, the company pioneered “buy now, pay later”, which allows customers to delay payments or divide them into instalments. The popular form of credit was boosted by the ecommerce boom during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski said late last year that he expected Klarna to be profitable again by August or September. -- Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023