Fifth annual loss for buy now, pay later giant Klarna ahead of possible stock market listing

Buy now, pay later giant Klarna has posted its fifth consecutive annual loss ahead of a potential IPO.

The Swedish company posted losses of £190 million for 2023, narrower than its loss of £800 million in 2022.

Revenue at Klarna, which offers customers a way to spread purchases across multiple payments with retailers, rose 22 per cent to £1.8bn in the year.

CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said: “We had made a conscious decision to invest in growth in the peak shopping season.”

The group, which handles around 2.5 million transactions a day and works with retailers such as Deliveroo and H&M, was regularly profitable before it began expanding in the US in 2019.

The company has started talks with investment banks and is working on an initial public offering in the US that could happen as early as the third quarter of the year, according to reports.