The Swedish-headquartered fintech Klarna is planning to go public in the United States, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, mentioned when talking to Bloomberg.

“It’s very likely that this is going to happen quite soon, but there are no official dates,” the CEO said in the video interview.

A Leader in BNPL Services

Klarna Bank AB offers buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services to retail clients. It was once the most valued European fintech; however, its valuation was slashed significantly to $6.7 billion last year from about $45.6 billion. Currently, the company is valued at $7.85 billion following its first quarterly profits in December.

With BNPL, retail customers of any e-commerce platform can receive a short-term credit for their purchases. According to Global Data, the BNPL sector is growing exponentially at an annual compounded rate of 25.5 percent, and the market size is expected to reach $565.8 billion by 2026.

US Is the Ideal IPO Market

The speculations of Klarna going public in Sweden and the United Kingdom have been going around for a while. The murmurs increased when the company set up a new UK holding company, which was considered preparatory work for a potential initial public offering (IPO).

However, according to the latest statements of the CEO, he wants to list the company in the US, considering the country to be the firm’s largest market by revenue. He also sounded less bullish towards a European listing, pointing out that Sweden and the UK “are still very small compared to the US one.”

“In the US, there is a bigger understanding of fintech and tech companies among the investor base,” Siemiatkowski said, adding that he wants “to make sure that all investors in Klarna have a tremendous investment.”

Recently, Klarna extended the scope of its partnership with Adyen. Under the new terms, Adyen will serve as the acquiring bank for Klarna's various consumer payment offerings, starting in Europe, North America, and Asia in 2024. As the payment provider, Adyen will help simplify card payments for Klarna's 150 million consumers and 500,000 merchant partners globally.