As Klarna, the Stockholm-based payments unicorn, is beefing up its credit risk management unit in New York, the company is also stretching out its credit terms.
Klarna offers credit for online purchases to all consumers, not just those who choose the credit option, like Bill Me Later, now known as PayPal Credit. Klarna’s “delivery service,” as the company calls it, is still 14 days today, but the company will soon launch “other credit and sale financing solutions” in the United Kingdom and the United States “with other terms, such as 30 days,” the company confirmed.
Today in London, Sebastian Siamiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO, hinted that consumers using Klarna would soon have 30 days to pay.
The upcoming change in credit terms points to the heightened focus on credit risk underwriting for Klarna. Right now, about 14% of the 77 job openings at Klarna related to credit risk analysis, by our count. In part, this is because Klarna is building a credit risk term in New York. The company is currently searching for someone to run that team.
Like so many fintech companies, Klarna taps “transactions and datasets to find behaviors, patterns, and variables that predict default.” However, a 30-day credit offering hearkens to more traditional credit underwriting. FICO was founded in 1956 for a reason.
That’s not to say there is anything hackneyed about Klarna’s credit risk operation. For example, the company uses MATLAB, an advanced, programming language for numerical calculations. Think of it as Excel on steroids.
Klarna reportedly has a current valuation of $2.25 billion. According to Klarna, more than 35 million people have used its service, and 50,000 merchants offer Klarna payments.