Klarna has launched ‘Sign in with Klarna’ to offer consumers a smoother shopping experience with increased control over their own data.
The AI-driven global payment provider has introduced the service to save consumers’ time by fast-tracking the online purchase process, as long as they consent to sharing their data, which in turn unlocks personalised offers from merchants.
Raji Behal, Head of Western and Southern Europe at Klarna, said: “With our new login service, we add another dimension to improving the customer journey for consumers and our offering towards merchants.”
The launch comes after Apple and Google’s elimination of third-party cookies, which has made it harder for payment services to automatically fill in customer details to speed the online checkout.
Sign-in with Klarna aims to solve this for both consumers and merchants, while also presenting a challenge to tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, and Google in the global verification industry – which is expected to almost double in size from $10.16bn today to $18.12bn by 2027.
The service is now available in 23 countries, including the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, and Romania.
The product launched initially in Klarna’s home country of Sweden, where it was first used in collaboration with restaurant app Maitres and the marketplace Tradera during a test period.
It has subsequently become the second most popular login method on Tradera, accounting for 20% of the total social logins after a few months.
Stefan Öberg, CEO at Tradera, commented: “We immediately get a complete profile with just a couple of clicks from the consumer, whereas similar services from Apple, Facebook, and Google create a profile that the customer needs to complete since it lacks information such as address and phone number.
“The vast majority of Swedes already use Klarna, and the new login service thus significantly simplifies registration for the majority of our customers.”
This news comes after Klarna announced last month that Sequoia Capital Partner, Matt Miller, would be joining the Boards of Klarna Holding AB and its subsidiary Klarna Bank AB.
A benefit for merchants is that the verification of the consumer’s data is entirely handled by Klarna, meaning cost saving for merchants who do not need to pay third-party services to confirm the customer’s identity via email or SMS.
Behal added: “We give consumers control over their own data, making it easy for them to choose what to share with stores for a more personalised shopping experience. The product has enormous growth potential, and we believe that it will become as familiar a feature in global online retail as our payment solutions in the near future.”
