Klarna’s CEO is so bullish about artificial intelligence that he sees it changing the way the fintech’s 100 million users bank every day.
On Wednesday, Klarna — a pioneer of the popular “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) payment method — is announcing the launch of mobile phone plans in the U.S. via a partnership with telecom services startup Gigs. The move follows in the footsteps of rival fintechs Revolut and N26, which have launched similar offerings. Klarna’s plans come with unlimited data, calls and texts and will cost $40 a month.
The new telco offering aligns with CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s vision to make Klarna more of an all-encompassing personalized financial “super app” that can offer services outside the realms of traditional finance.
It isn’t the company’s first attempt. Previously, Klarna tried to make itself more akin to a “super app” — similar to Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s
WeChat Pay — offering additional services through multiple different buttons. This ended up being “confusing for the customer,” however, Siemiatkowski told CNBC in an interview.
