H&M fashions itself a $20m stake in Klarna
With a dramatic flourish and arched eyebrows, fashion chain H&M has taken a stylish $20 million stake in Swedish payment provider Klarna.
This amounts to a 1% share in the firm, and H&M and Klarna say they will further integrate H&M’s digital and physical stores.
Klarna’s so hot right now
According to the two darlings, this partnership will power the H&M Club payment programme, for an “enhanced omni-channel customer payment offering” and a “streamlined post-purchase service in the H&M app”.
Karl-Johan Persson, CEO H&M Group, says: “We are impressed with what Klarna has achieved to date and now we will work together to elevate the modern shopping experience.”
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and co-founder of Klarna, adds: “Customers will no longer be forgiving of unnecessary complexity or when their retail experience does not leverage the insight available to make their engagement smart, personal and easy.”
Klarna’s platform will offer instore, mobile and online payments, deliveries and returns, and how and when to pay including the “try before you buy” pay later service.
This will happen across 14 H&M markets, with the UK and Sweden in the first phase, expected to go live in 2019.
In another acquisition, last month Klarna said it was acquiring Close Brothers Retail Finance (CBRF) from UK merchant banking group Close Brothers Group to strengthen its position in the UK’s retail finance market.
