Taking a place with financing services in Walmart's cash registers – online and in stores – is a really big deal and can push up the value of Klarna ahead of the company's expected listing on Wall Street.
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski describes Walmart's One Pay's choice of Klarna as exclusive partner for financing solutions at Walmart as "an enormous vote of confidence".
"We look forward to helping redefine checkout from the world's largest retailer – both online and in stores", writes Siemiatkowski.
Applied for listing on Friday
The news of the new agreement comes after Klarna on Friday applied to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange – without specifying either the date for a potential listing or the valuation aimed for when going public.
Walmart – which sells everything from food to electronics, cars, and tools – is the world's 13th highest-valued listed company and had a turnover of approximately 6,800 billion kronor last year. Of Walmart's sales in the US – around 4,460 billion kronor last year – nearly a fifth was online sales.
With Klarna's support in Walmart's cash registers, customers will be offered various payment and credit solutions, with the possibility of creating payment plans that stretch up to three years, according to Klarna.
Klarna is pushing its competitor Affirm out of Walmart's checkout solution with its agreement with Walmart's One Pay.
Competitor crashes on the stock exchange
Affirm's shares collapse in futures trading on Wall Street after the news, down 14 percent since rumors of Klarna's agreement spread on TV channel CNBC.
Ahead of Klarna's expected listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Bloomberg's sources have stated that the company is aiming for a valuation of more than 150 billion kronor and will likely raise around 10 billion kronor in a new share issue in connection with the introduction of the shares.
Documents attached to the listing application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday show that Klarna last year made a net profit of 21 million dollars on a turnover of 2.8 billion dollars.
Klarna currently has 93 million customers in the consumer segment and offers its solutions to 675,000 retail companies around the world, according to updated figures from last week.
