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Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking during a Fintech event in London on Monday April 4, 2022.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Klarna’s CEO is so optimistic about artificial intelligence that he sees him change the way the 100 million Fintech Fintech users were banished every day.
Wednesday, Klarna – A pioneer of the popular payment method “Buy Now, Pay later” (BNPL) – announces the launch of mobile telephony plans in the United States via a partnership with the start -up concerts of telecommunications services. This decision follows in the footsteps of Rival Fintechs Revolut and N26, which launched similar offers. Klarna’s plans are delivered with unlimited data, calls and SMS and will cost $ 40 per month.
The new telecommunications offer is aligned with the vision of the CEO of Sebastian Siemiatkowski to make Klarna plus a personalized financial “super application” which can offer services outside the fields of traditional finance.
This is not the company’s first attempt. Previously, Klarna was trying to make herself more similar to a “super application” – similar to the Alipay of Ant Group and Tence WeChat Pay – Offering additional services via several different buttons. It ended up being “confusing for the customer”, however, Siemiatkowski told CNBC in an interview.
But Klarna’s boss stressed that the role that AI could play with them seems to diversify its services and become known for more than its BNPL offer.
“I think that in this new world of AI, there is a better opportunity to serve customers with different services, then to adopt the type of articulation and visualization of these services than there was historically,” said Siemiatkowski.
“With AI, you can summarize and adopt the experience much more to the specific user with which you are dealing,” he added.
Super applications are popular in China and other parts of Asia. They are intended to serve as a one -stop shop for all your mobile needs – for example, have a taxi and a food order in the same place as payment and messaging services.
However, while super applications prospered in Asia, adoption on Western markets was nevertheless slower for a number of reasons.
“Formidable opportunity”
Siemiatkowski says it spends a lot of time focusing on AI.
“There is a great opportunity for that-but that only makes it work,” he said. “Everyone who used it know that he can spit exciting things, but you must then make sure it works every time.”
In the future, the chief of Klarna sees the platform becoming more and more a “digital financial assistant” for the everyday banking needs of users.
“If we have any information that suggests that you are excessively overcoming your carrier subscription or your data or something else,” says Siemiatkowski, Klarna will aim to use AI to “offer you both a suggestion of a better price model, but also with a click, implement this and make a reality”.
Recognizing the problems with Klarna’s previous attempt to become a great application, Siemiatkowski says that technology was simply not “mature” at the time.
“In the end, the northern star for all financial products – in particular Fintech companies – is to try to be the financial advisor in your pocket,” said Simon Taylor, Sardine.ai, in CNBC. “This private banker like experience, but provided by a brand becomes the super-agrees of your financial life, and that is what” client possession “looks like in the AI era.”
Taylor has added that, although many companies always find how to use AI, “you have companies like Klarna Building in public and trying to grasp market share for a future that may not yet be built”.
Clear said a loss of $ 99 million For the quarter which ended in March, invoking unique costs linked to damping, payments based on actions and restructuring.
Perception problem
However, Klarna has a perception problem to overcome. In the United States, the company has become synonymous with the payment method “Buy now, pay later” (BNPL), which allows consumers to reimburse orders compared to monthly payments – generally without interest.
On the other hand, European consumers acknowledge that they can use Klarna to store their deposits and pay things at once as well as via a credit plan, according to Siemiatkowski.
He also expressed his frustration in the face of “the kind of memes we enter to the United States when it is like” Oh, Klarna launched with Doordash … it is a sign of the macroeconomic environment, “referring to a Keep the company announced with the DOORDASH food delivery application Earlier this year, which was met online.
Siemiakowski said this type of reaction would not occur in the German or Nordic markets, where Klarna works more like the PayPal online payment system.
He sees a future where Klarna works as a more global financial ecosystem with additional services such as features for investments in actions and cryptocurrencies-which, he adds, is not so far “.
“Offering people the opportunity to invest in actions and the crypto is what becomes a kind of more standard part of a Neobank offer,” he said, stressing that he does not want to compete with the popular American stock trading app Robin.
When the Klarna IPO?
Clear plans to make public in AprilAfter US President Donald Trump announced scanning prices on dozens of countries.
Siemiatkowski said Klarna had already achieved what he intended to do to be ready for this important step – namely, build a brand in the United States
“The United States is now our largest market in the number of users. It is a profitable market for us,” he said. “These things have been accomplished.”
Whether or not the company is public, Klarna’s commercial strategy remains the same.
“It is just a healthy way to stimulate liquidity for our shareholders, as well as to give the company more means to finance itself, if it wishes, and … to show that it is an established company,” said Siemiatkowski.
