Klarna CEO Siemiatkowski says buy now, pay later is used by shoppers who otherwise avoid credit
Sebastian Siemiatkowski is a co-founder and CEO of Klarna, the Sweden-based company that’s one of the world’s biggest providers of buy now, pay later services to customers
NEW YORK — Sebastian Siemiatkowski is a co-founder and CEO of Klarna, the Sweden-based company that’s one of the world’s biggest providers of buy now, pay later services to customers. Klarna started off in Europe and entered the U.S. market in 2015.
Buy now, pay later has become an increasingly popular option for consumers for purchases: its usage is up 10-fold since the pandemic and U.S. regulators see it as potentially a more sustainable way for borrowers to pay for purchases instead of using credit cards.
Siemiatkowski spoke to the AP about how popular buy now, pay later has gotten since the pandemic, why consumers are choosing it and how the company is using artificial intelligence software in how it hires. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A: As we were considering coming to the US, we identified that there was a fairly large group of U.S. consumers that they called self-aware avoiders, people had been burned by the bad practices of credit cards. We found there is a fairly big audience that is preferring to use debit but occasionally want to use credit on single occasions and where buy now pay later, you know, fits them really well.
A: Merchants are getting access to customers that they may not have had access to before, through the option of getting interest-free credit. So these merchants are seeing higher order value and more spending. Roughly 20% of the spending volume for Klarna is now coming through our own app, but it allows the merchants to keep operating their own websites, so they can control how they present their
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