Klarna weighs U.S. IPO revival as soon as September

Klarna Group Plc is considering reviving its potential New York initial public offering as soon as September, people familiar with the matter said, following a recent surge in fintech stock prices and strong debuts of US listings.

The digital payment company is gearing up its preparations for the first-time share sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Deliberations are ongoing and there’s no final decision on the details including timing, the people said.

A spokesperson for Klarna declined to comment.

Klarna filed for its IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in March and was going to start marketing its shares to potential investors. It was seeking to raise at least $1 billion at a valuation of more than $15 billion, people familiar with the matter have said. However, the company put the plans on hold amid the market turbulence triggered by President Donald Trump’s announcement of wide-ranging tariffs in April, Bloomberg News reported at the time.

Founded in Stockholm and led by Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna offers consumers so-called buy now, pay later financing, a type of lending that took off at the start of the decade and further accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic with the explosion of online shopping. 

More recently, though, the company has been positioning itself as a digital bank that can offer everything from checking and savings accounts to credit and debit cards. The change would make Klarna more similar to Chime Financial Inc., which raised almost $1 billion in its US IPO in June following a delay earlier this year due to market jitters. Chime’s shares have since risen more than 25%.

Shares of Affirm Holdings Inc., a rival to Klarna on buy now, pay later financing, have rebounded by almost 50% from the start of April.

Klarna itself also has a slew of good news to tout to potential investors. The company said this week it has received an electronic money institution license for its UK division, which could lay the ground work for it to more directly compete against the likes of Revolut Ltd. and Monzo Bank Ltd. for retail bank customers.

It has also seen a drop in souring loans. Delinquency rates on its buy now, pay later portfolio globally fell to 0.88% in the second quarter, a 15 basis point improvement from the same period a year earlier, the company said in a statement this week.