Swedish Fintech firm Klarna is partnering with Walmart to exclusively provide “buy now, pay later” services to the grocery giant’s customers, replacing Affirm. Klarna will be available via finance app OnePay at online and physical checkouts of Walmart, according to a statement on Monday.
The latest partnership with Walmart follows Klarna’s recent public filing for a U.S. IPO, which could be one of the year’s largest financial listings. According to Bloomberg News, Klarna aims to raise at least $1 billion, targeting a valuation exceeding $15 billion.
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Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski called this partnership a “game changer” in a statement. This deal would give Klarna access to Walmart’s millions of customers and a new avenue of expansion in the U.S., already one of its fastest-growing markets.
This comes shortly after Klarna entered into an arrangement that would allow OnePay to acquire 15.3 million shares in the Swedish fintech. According to Klarna’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 14, the firm entered into a “commercial agreement with a global partner,” which it didn’t name.
Affirm is currently a Walmart partner, however Klarna would become the exclusive option for installment loans once the integration is rolled out this year. Shares in Affirm dropped as much as 15.8% as the market opened and were trading 5.8% lower at 2:46 p.m. in New York.
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Klarna and Affirm have been rivals for years, though Affirm is more focused on the U.S. market. In September 2024, Affirm CEO and co-founder Max Levchin told PaymentsDive that he wanted to differentiate his company from competitors including Klarna. One way of doing that, he told at a technology conference in 2024, is to focus on earning revenue from individual transactions.
While Klarna’s global reach is greater than Affirm’s, Klarna has also made a significant push into the U.S. market. In April 2024, the company told TechCrunch that the U.S. and Germany represented its largest markets but that the U.S. was “gaining all the time and is often largest on a quarterly basis.”