Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Klarna has lined up its first-ever warehouse facility, securing as much as €1.4bn from Spanish banking giant Santander as it looks to broaden its funding base.
A warehouse facility is a line of credit from a bank that a lender can draw on to fund new loans. Klarna's facility will serve as a “key pillar” of the company’s growth strategy, CFO Niclas Neglen told Bloomberg on Thursday.
Founded in 2005 by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna made its name by mainstreaming its flagship BNPL product, which allows shoppers to delay or split payments.
Klarna, which holds a Swedish banking licence, has been expanding its toolkit for funding consumer loans, including a platform that sells debt portfolios to global investors.
Last week, Klarna struck an agreement to offload up to $26 billion of BNPL debt to US student loan giant Nelnet. The company previously inked a similar deal with Elliott Investment Management’s UK arm for as much as £30bn of loans.
The fresh financing comes as Klarna considers reviving its long-delayed New York IPO as soon as September, having delayed a public float earlier this year as a result of the market turbulence triggered by Donald Trump’s tariff regime derailed previous plans.
