Klarna is Europe’s most valuable “unicorn” or unlisted start-up,with a valuation of $US31 billion in March. There have been reports the company,which was founded in 2005,is set for a listing in London. However,local analysts say it has made slow progress in cracking into Australia’s competitive BNPL market.
Evans&Partners analyst Matthew Wilson referred to the latest figures disclosed by Commonwealth Bank at an investor briefing last week. “CBA noted that Klarna had signed up 700 merchants and had 850k downloads… however,that is clearly a long way from Afterpay at 3.5 million users and 57.7k merchants,” Mr Wilson said.
CBA is a 5 per cent shareholder in Klarna,but in March it surprised the market when it said it would launch its own BNPL service,prompting questions to chief executive Matt Comyn over CBA’s commitment to the Klarna partnership.
“We see them[Klarna] as a really important and strategic partner for the long term,but we’ve been very open with them along the way about our desire to also experiment some other ways,particularly with our own buy now pay later offering,” Mr Comyn said last week.
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