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Klarna is quite large, and I'm a bit surprised to see them on the list since I thought they were doing quite well and there's real economies of scale in their b

Klarna is quite large, and I'm a bit surprised to see them on the list since I thought they were doing quite well and there's real economies of scale in their business (digital payments & financing). As for the rest, meh.

nivenkos 4y ago
They had massive losses recently, I guess rising interest rates makes tough times even for loan sharks.
gtirloni 4y ago
I think meh sums up this article pretty well.
weatherlite 4y ago
Letting go of 10% of staff is bad but pretty common, it doesn't mean the company is going bankrupt.
subpixel 4y ago
Their USP is interest-free loans, I’ve used them for very large purchases for sheer convenience. But as soon as the loan is not interest free any sane customer will just use their credit card and avoid the adjustable rate trap. The customers who don’t have a credit card represent a whole different line of business and a shitty one in a bear market.
- jks 4y ago
  At least here in Finland Klarna engages in borderline-shady tactics. They use all the dark patterns you can think of to get your personal identity number even if you choose a payment method that doesn't require it, presumably to combine data from various sources. They skip the difficult identity-verification steps to make the checkout go faster, which of course means they can be easily used for fraud, and it falls to the unfortunate bystander whose identity was stolen to report the fraud and return the goods. I and a lot of friends avoid Klarna checkouts to the point of choosing a more expensive shop or ordering from outside the country.
  - usr1106 4y ago
    And they have done so for many years and seem to have a huge market share. I am suprised to see them characterized as a start-up. For me they are an established shady business I'd always avoid. For those who don't understand the problem: The Finnish legal system does not understand the difference between identification and authentication: By using someone's national personal id you can make debt and the owner of the id has little chances of not having to pay it back.

nivenkos 4y ago

They had massive losses recently, I guess rising interest rates makes tough times even for loan sharks.

gtirloni 4y ago

I think meh sums up this article pretty well.

weatherlite 4y ago

Letting go of 10% of staff is bad but pretty common, it doesn't mean the company is going bankrupt.

subpixel 4y ago

Their USP is interest-free loans, I’ve used them for very large purchases for sheer convenience. But as soon as the loan is not interest free any sane customer will just use their credit card and avoid the adjustable rate trap. The customers who don’t have a credit card represent a whole different line of business and a shitty one in a bear market.

jks 4y ago
At least here in Finland Klarna engages in borderline-shady tactics. They use all the dark patterns you can think of to get your personal identity number even if you choose a payment method that doesn't require it, presumably to combine data from various sources. They skip the difficult identity-verification steps to make the checkout go faster, which of course means they can be easily used for fraud, and it falls to the unfortunate bystander whose identity was stolen to report the fraud and return the goods. I and a lot of friends avoid Klarna checkouts to the point of choosing a more expensive shop or ordering from outside the country.
- usr1106 4y ago
  And they have done so for many years and seem to have a huge market share. I am suprised to see them characterized as a start-up. For me they are an established shady business I'd always avoid. For those who don't understand the problem: The Finnish legal system does not understand the difference between identification and authentication: By using someone's national personal id you can make debt and the owner of the id has little chances of not having to pay it back.