Finance

Klarna launches bank-like personal account, cashback ahead of IPO

Published

8 months ago

August 15, 2024

Business Finance News

Buy now, pay later firms like Klarna and Block’s Afterpay could be about to face tougher rules in the U.K.

Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Financial technology firm Klarna is pushing deeper into banking with its own checking account-like product and a cashback offering that rewards users for shopping via its app.

The company — best known for its buy now, pay later loans that let consumers pay for purchases via interest-free monthly installments — said Thursday that it is launching the new products as it seeks to “disrupt retail banking” and encourage customers to move their spending and saving onto its platform.

“These new products make it easier for customers to manage multiple scheduled payments, helping our customers use Klarna for more frequent purchases and driving loyalty,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO and founder, told CNBC.

Siemiatkowski said that Klarna wants to “support all consumers with their everyday spending,” adding that the products will allow people to “earn money while they shop and manage it in a Klarna account.”

The two new products, which are being rolled out in 12 markets including the U.S. and across Europe, will show up in the Klarna app as “balance” and “cashback.”

Klarna balance lets users store money in a bank-like personal account, which they can then use to make instant purchases and pay off their buy now, pay later loans.

Users can also receive refunds for returned items directly in their Klarna balance.

Cashback offers customers the ability to earn up to 10% of the value of their purchases at participating retailers as rewards. Any money earned gets automatically stored in their balance account.

It’s not Klarna’s first foray into more traditional banking; the company has offered checking accounts and savings products in Germany since 2021.

Now, the company is expanding these banking products in other markets.

Customers in the EU — where Klarna has an official bank license — will be able to earn as much as 3.58% interest on their deposits. Customers in the U.S., however, will not be able to earn interest.

The launch marks a major step up in Klarna’s product range as the fintech giant edges closer toward a much-anticipated U.S. IPO.

Klarna CEO on potential IPO in 2024: 'It's not impossible'

Klarna has yet to set a fixed timeline for the stock market listing. However, in an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” in February, Siemiatkowski said an IPO this year was “not impossible.”

“We still have a few steps and work ahead of ourselves,” he said. “But we’re keen on becoming a public company.”

In the meantime, Klarna is in discussions with investors about a secondary share sale to provide its employees with some liquidity, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Klarna’s valuation on the open secondary market is currently in the high-teen billions, said the source, who was speaking on condition of anonymity as details of the share sale are not yet public.

Finance

China’s response to U.S. tariffs will likely focus on stimulus, trade

Published

2 hours ago

April 3, 2025

Business Finance News

Chinese national flags flutter on boats near shipping containers at the Yangshan Port outside Shanghai, China, February 7, 2025.

Go Nakamura | Reuters

BEIJING — China’s reaction to new U.S. tariffs will likely focus on domestic stimulus and strengthening ties with trading partners, according to analysts based in Greater China.

Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced additional 34% tariffs on China, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce called on the U.S. to cancel the tariffs, and vowed unspecified countermeasures. The sweeping U.S. policy also slapped new duties on the European Union and major Asian countries.

Chinese exports to the U.S. this year had already been hit by 20% in additional tariffs, raising the total rate on shipments from China to 54%, among the highest levied by the Trump administration. The effective rate for individual product lines can vary.

But, as has been the case, the closing line of the Chinese statement was a call to negotiate.

“I think the focus of China’s response in the near term won’t be retaliatory tariffs or such measures,” said Bruce Pang, adjunct associate professor at CUHK Business School. That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese-language statement.

Instead, Pang expects China to focus on improving its own economy by diversifying export destinations and products, as well as doubling down on its priority of boosting domestic consumption.

Watch for cascading tariffs as tariffs reroute trade within Asia, says economist

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has since September stepped up stimulus efforts by expanding the fiscal deficit, increasing a consumption trade-in subsidy program and calling for a halt in the real estate slump. Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting with tech entrepreneurs including Alibaba founder Jack Ma in February, in a show of support for the private sector.

The policy reversal — from regulatory tightening in recent years — reflects how Beijing has been “anticipating the coming slowdown or even crash in exports,” Macquarie’s Chief China Economist Larry Hu said in a report, ahead of Trump’s latest tariff announcement. He pointed out that the pandemic-induced export boom of 2021 enabled Beijing to “launch a massive regulatory campaign.”

“My view stays the same,” Hu said in an email Thursday. “Beijing will use domestic stimulus to offset the impact of tariffs, so that they could still achieve the growth target of ‘around 5%.'”

Instead of retaliatory tariffs, Hu also expects Beijing will focus on still using blacklists, export controls on critical minerals and probes into foreign companies in China. Hu also anticipates China will keep the yuan strong against the U.S. dollar and resist calls from retailers to cut prices — as a way to push inflationary pressure onto the U.S.

China’s top leaders in early March announced they would pursue a target of around 5% growth in gross domestic product this year, a task they emphasized would require “very arduous work” to achieve. The finance ministry also hinted it could increase fiscal support if needed.

About 20% of China’s economy relies on exports, according to Goldman Sachs. They previously estimated that new U.S. tariffs of around 60% on China would lower real GDP by around 2 percentage points. The firm still maintains a full-year forecast of 4.5% GDP growth.

Changing global trade

What’s different from the impact of tariffs under Trump’s first term is that China is not the only target, but one of a swath of countries facing hefty levies on their exports to the U.S. Some of these countries, such as Vietnam and Thailand, had served as alternate routes for Chinese goods to reach the U.S.

At the Chinese export hub of Yiwu on Thursday, businesses seemed nonchalant about the impact of the new U.S. tariffs, due to a perception their overseas competitors wouldn’t gain an advantage, said Cameron Johnson, a Shanghai-based senior partner at consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions.

He pointed out that previously, the U.S. had focused its trade measures on forcing companies to remove China from their supply chains and go to other countries. But Chinese manufacturers had expanded overseas alongside that diversification, he said.

“The reality is this [new U.S. tariff policy] essentially gives most of Asia and Africa to China, and the U.S. is not prepared,” Johnson said. He expects China won’t make things unnecessarily difficult for U.S. businesses operating in the country and instead will try harder to build other trade relationships.

Since Trump’s first four-year term ended in early 2021, China has increased its trade with Southeast Asia so much that the region is now Beijing’s largest trading partner, followed by the European Union and then the U.S.

The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) joined China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand in forming the world’s largest free trade bloc — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — which came into being in early 2022. The U.S. and India are not members of the RCEP.

“RCEP member countries will naturally deepen trade ties with one another,” Yue Su, principal economist, China, at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a note Thursday.

“This is also partly because China’s economy is likely to remain the most — or at least among the most—stable in relative terms, given the government’s strong commitment to its growth targets and its readiness to deploy fiscal policy measures when needed,” she said.

Uncertainties remain

The extent to which all countries will be slapped with tariffs this week remains uncertain as Trump is widely expected to use the duties as a negotiating tactic, especially with China.

He said last week the U.S. could lower its tariffs on China to help close a deal for Beijing-based ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations.

But the level of new tariffs on China was worse than many investors expected.

“Unlike some of the optimistic market forecasts, we do not expect a US-China bilateral grand bargain,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note Thursday.

“We expect tensions between these two mega economies to worsen significantly,” he said, “especially as China has been making large strides in high-tech sectors, including AI and robotics.”