European payment provider Klarna eyes Indian shoppers

European payment provider Klarna, which allows consumers to make online purchases using only their e-mail address and postcode with no pre-registration or credit cards, is exploring the possibility of setting up business in India.
The Stockholm-based company is currently valued at around USD 1 billion and active in 16 countries.
"We don't have immediate plans of expanding into India. But we are always exploring such a possibility of setting up business in a country like India," Erik Engellau-Nilsson, Klarna's Vice President (Communications), told PTI here.
The company, which is one of the many start-ups Stockholm has seen in the past decade, was founded in 2005 by three students at Stockholm School of Economics and has 1,100 employees across the countries where it has operations.

"We have 800 employees in Stockholm of whom nearly 50 are Indians. All these people are from about 50 nationalities," Nilsson said.
"Ever since we started in 2005, Klarna has been focusing on removing friction and hassles from online buying. To date, about 35 million consumers have shopped using Klarna payment methods. We also have 50,000 merchants," he said.

Klarna integrates the payment methods promising to make online shopping easier.
"We take care of the entire checkout. Our aim is to make the shopping process easier and frictionless. We allow retailers to experience checkout conversion rates of up to 80 per cent. Our service also allows consumers to have a product delivered before they have to pay for it," Nilsson said.

For using Klarna, there is no need to create an account or a password.
"Customers can shop using only their email address and postcode. The customer then confirms the purchase before choosing a payment method. We have also introduced Pay After Delivery as a payment option, where the customer has 14 days to pay. This means the customer gets their goods and can make sure they're okay before paying," he said.
For this, the Klarna gives full guarantee to the customers as well as merchants.
For every purchase that's processed, the company also performs a swift background check on customer information based on the speed at which they type their email address and postcode.

"This ensures that Klarna can assume all the risk for fraud and credit loss, for both the customer and the merchant. This means that you always get paid, irrespective of the payment method," Nilsson said.
Klarna claims to be one of the fastest growing companies in Europe and having a 10 per cent market share of e-commerce in Northern Europe.
Besides Sweden and fellow Nordic countries Denmark, Finland and Norway, Klarna is active in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.