Klarna boss Sebastian Siemiatkowski speaks out on Ukraine crisis
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and Co-founder at buy now, pay later big hitter Klarna, has taken to Twitter to address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Now the press is asking me, what’s the impact of the Ukraine war on Klarna,” said Siemiatkowski, whose grandparents lived through invasions of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and whose parents emigrated to Sweden in the early 1980s.
“The answer is simple: We don't care how it impacts our business. It's irrelevant! If there are any consequences from the war, on Klarna, we are happy to take them, that is the very very least we can do.”
Siemiatkowski’s comments came as Klarna Bank revealed that the value of transactions enabled by its payment options rose 42% to $80 billion in 2021.
The European FinTech reported total net operating income of 13.75 billion Swedish kronor ($1.46 billion), up 38% from 2020.
It now carries out around two million transactions a day and acquisitions mean it has more than 147 million global active users.
The US continues to be Klarna’s fastest growing market, and the firm now partners with 30 of the top 100 US retail brands.
Klarna is targeting half a billion users over the next few years.
On the downside, credit losses almost doubled to 4.6 billion Swedish kronor ($487 million), up from 2.5 billion kronor in 2020.
This was “a direct result of our expansion and the increased volume of new consumers, rather than a deterioration of the portfolio,” Klarna said in an investor presentation.
