Klarna Bank AB’s CEO says the fintech company is leaning towards going public in U.S. markets, as evolving payment technologies give his business a boost.

“U.S. is our largest market for revenue, so it’s at least leaning in that direction,” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told BNN Bloomberg in a Monday interview.

Siemiatkowski, who started the company almost twenty years ago, spoke about the evolving consumer ecosystem of e-commerce on his app.

In addition to the buy now, pay later payment instalment options the firm is known for, Siemiatkowski said the evolution of purchase analytics has been beneficial for Klarna’s business.

“We know not only that you bought at H&M. We know the exact product you bought,” he said. “It allows us to provide richer and richer services so consumers can go into the app, they could see images of the items that they bought, their purchase history is super superior to their credit card. This has had a very positive flywheel effect for growing trade on our network.”

Siemiatkowski said detailed receipt data allows for complex services that were traditionally challenging in e-commerce contexts. 

For example, Klarna analytics can “make it easier to make returns, make it easier to solve disputes, customer service errands, make it easier for customers to come back and buy additional products,” Siemiatkowski said.

Buy now, pay later risks

Klarna has been referenced as a buy-now-pay-later company, an avenue of purchase installments that experts have warned could carry risks.

This month, Merril Mascarenhas, managing partner at Arcus Consulting Group, told BNN Bloomberg that interest rates could be significant for BNPL systems, particularly when services are often “lightly regulated.”

Mascarenhas’s consulting firm determined that consumers who have between two and four outstanding BNPL loans are twice as likely to default at the end of their interest-free period, citing inflationary pressure as a driving force in making delayed payments more attractive.

Siemiatkowski said about 70 per cent of Klarna transactions are credit-based and the rest are debit.

“This year I’ve been a little more concerned,” he said. “I think that the consumer spending is actually slightly weaker than you see in the news media right now. What my concern is also, as a credit provider, is that so far we have had an increasing cost, but we haven’t yet seen an increase in unemployment.”