Klarna launches ‘Pay Now’ immediate payment option in UK

Leading global banking, payments and shopping service Klarna has today announced a package of changes to expand its UK offering to give consumers more choice and control over how they pay, including a 'Pay Now' option.

The new ‘Pay Now’ option ensures UK consumers can always pay immediately and in full, wherever Klarna is available, with the same payment experience whether they choose to pay now or later.

Klarna has begun to leverage its own well established Open Banking services, already connected to over 6,000 banks across 20 countries, to help support even better real-time lending decisions. In addition to the checks which Klarna performs on each and every purchase, consumers will be able to securely share income and spending data from their bank accounts to confirm they can afford future repayments.

Klarna is also strengthening its checkout language, making it absolutely clear that BNPL options are credit products, with consequences for missed payments. It has also worked together with the consumer group, Fairer Finance, to make sure that terms and conditions are clear, simple and easy to understand. Additionally, Klarna has established its own complaints adjudicator for consumers who remain dissatisfied with how their complaint against Klarna has been handled.

Klarna confirmed it has taken these measures after being informed by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) that complaints about BNPL products could not be referred to FOS on a voluntary jurisdiction basis.

From today, the company will also remove any remaining late fees from its regulated financing product, which consumers use to spread the cost of higher value purchases over 6-36 months.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s Co-founder and CEO said: “We firmly believe that most of the time, people should pay with the money they have, but there are certain times where credit makes sense. In those cases, our BNPL products offer a sustainable and no cost healthy form of credit - and a much needed alternative to high cost credit cards. The changes we are announcing today mean that consumers are fully in control of their payments whether they pay now or pay later.”

Sebastian Siemiatkowski recently appeared on TheIndustry.fashion's In Detail podcast, which is available to listen to online and on various podcast streaming platforms.