Klarna
The everyday finance network, Long-term growth
Klarna is spend-centric, not lend-centric
The everyday finance network
Klarna calls itself the everyday finance network: consumers pay in full, pay later, or spread large purchases through it, at 1.2 million merchants. Klarna says each new merchant and consumer brings a wider network, deeper engagement, and better economics on every transaction. It measures progress in transaction margin dollars: the revenue left after processing, credit losses, and funding.
A wider network
- Payment platforms
Switch Klarna on by default through payment platforms, so every merchant on them can offer it with no new integration.
- Merchants
Bring more merchants to more of its products, above all Fair Financing for large purchases.
- AI shopping
Go where consumers search: flexible payments in Google Search and the Gemini app, and a shopping search app inside ChatGPT.
Klarna had 1,208,000 merchants, up 54% in a year, and 256,000 of them offered Fair Financing.
J.P. Morgan Payments, the largest U.S. merchant acquirer, went live on 6 August 2026, alongside Stripe and Nexi.
Klarna manages the Apple Upgrade program, device leasing on the Apple Store in the U.S., in its app.
Klarna keeps $1.22 of every $100 spent through it
In the second quarter of 2026 Klarna earned $2.85 in revenue on every $100 spent through it. That leaves $1.22 after processing, credit losses, and funding, or $1.14 without a one-off sale of loans.
- Processing and servicing$0.64
- Provisions for credit losses$0.52
- Funding$0.47
- Transaction margin$1.22
Each grew faster than the last
- Volume (GMV)+18%
- Revenue+27%
- Transaction margin dollars+42%
Growth in the second quarter of 2026 on a year earlier.
Klarna Card users grew fivefold in a year
The Klarna Card takes Klarna wherever a card is accepted. It had 6.5 million active users in Q2 2026, in 16 countries by the second quarter of 2026, and more than doubled in the nine months after Klarna’s first earnings call.
0.0m
active Klarna Card users
2 million paying members, 8 times a year earlier
A year earlier
Q2 2026
Each pass is 125,000 members. Membership revenue is earned on the membership, not on each purchase.
J.P. Morgan Payments switched Klarna on in August 2026
Payment platforms switch Klarna on for the merchants they already serve, with no new integration. J.P. Morgan Payments, the largest U.S. merchant acquirer, processes $2.6 trillion a year, and the platforms enabling Klarna by default handle over $9.5 trillion between them.
0.00m
merchants live, Q2 2026
0k
offering Fair Financing, for large purchases
A dot is 10,000 merchants. Platforms as at August 2026: J.P. Morgan Payments went live on 6 August; the four switched off are expected before the peak season.
Name the one number you steer by.
Klarna says it measures its progress in transaction margin dollars, and that they shape how it builds, prices, and underwrites. When it cut its 2026 volume guidance it raised the guidance for that number. We recommend choosing the measure a plan optimises for, saying so, and letting it decide the trade-offs.
Report the order, not just the growth.
“Volume grew 18%, revenue grew 27%, and transaction margin dollars grew 42%. Each grew faster than the last.” We recommend showing how each layer of a result grows against the one beneath it, because the order says more about the plan than any one figure.
Say which volume you turn down.
Klarna calls its more measured view of volume a conscious choice to keep its underwriting standards. We recommend stating the business a plan chooses not to chase, so a miss on one measure reads as a decision rather than a failure.
Sources
Headwater is not connected with Klarna. Klarna and Klarna Card are trade marks of their owners. Updated 29 September 2026.