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Are Klarna More Than Just Another Banking Service?

Klarna, the Swedish bank, offers direct payments, pay after delivery options and instalment plans to consumers to allow them to pay when and how they want to. TFT spoke to Eli Geoffroy (Product Manager, Klarna) shortly after his presentation at the Fintech Design Summit to ask how Klarna utilise user experience design to differentiate themselves in the banking and finance industry.

TFT: What makes Klarna’s UX stand out?

Eli Geoffroy, Product Manager, Klarna

Eli: At Klarna, we work with a clear objective to create a smooth consumer experience. For us this means something that is intuitive as well as fun and enjoyable, but of course also easy to use and safe. We are striving to become more than just another banking service and to offer innovative services that provide an unparalleled consumer experience that simplifies payments and financial services, giving people more time to do what they love.

Across markets we see that increasing connectivity has made it harder for people to solve their daily time equation. We have gone from focusing on a few big moments in a day, to hundreds of ‘micro moments’ that needs to be planned, decided on and solved for. This is especially true for managing our money and purchases, and today we spend more time administering finances, purchases, issues, etc. and less time doing the things that we love. Most companies in the banking and finance industry have not been able to solve this (yet). Many often add in unnecessary steps and complexity to a consumer journey or, cater to only a few ‘micro moments’. What people want instead is a life free from unnecessary complexity and a smooth experience throughout all these ‘micro moments’.

This is what we try to do at Klarna. We want to develop services that act like a ‘personal concierge’, taking care of all micro moments throughout the entire consumer journey. To achieve this, we ask ourselves ‘What problem are we solving for the consumer and how does it add value to their lives?’. This is the starting point in everything we do, and ensures that we keep a laser focus on ‘new and value-adding’ services rather than just ‘new and/or cool services’, which I to some extent believe has been an issue for both banks and fintechs historically.

TFT: What are Klarna investing in right now?

Eli: From a UX-in-app point of view, one example is our new Shopping feature in the Klarna app (currently available in Sweden and the US), where shoppers can pay with Klarna everywhere. Before they would have another ‘micro moment’ to solve if a store didn’t offer Klarna. Now, if they shop from within the app they can enjoy the smoothness of shopping with Klarna everywhere.

But that’s just one example, and as previously said we have to make sure to be there throughout the whole consumer journey. So if people want to keep track of the items they like, they can add them to our universal, cross merchant wishlist. If they order something we will let them know once the order is on its way and when it is scheduled to arrive. If a consumer wants to return something – it shouldn’t be a hassle to do so and with Klarna, it’s done in just a few clicks. We do everything to make the consumers everyday lives easier and allow them to spend more time doing the things they love in life.

We want to develop services that act like a ‘personal concierge’, taking care of all micro moments throughout the entire consumer journey

To be able to accomplish this efficiently we have implemented a new operating model that consists of more than 200 small start-up like teams that own a process end-to-end. This has accelerated our time-to-market, and allows us to launch new products and services quickly so we can ensure we are solving the right ‘micro moments’ in the right way by gathering feedback and tailoring our products or services to the consumers’ needs. All this ensures that we can provide consumers with a superior experience before, during and after completing a purchase with Klarna.

Author

  • Editorial Director of the The Fintech Times

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