The news: The Klarna Card reached 5 million active users, and Klarna’s merchant network surpassed 1 million merchants globally, per press releases.

Why this matters: Klarna’s successful card campaign and merchant expansion give it more opportunities to snag in-store payment volume, where the majority of US spending occurs, per our forecast. 

Beyond the Klarna Card’s rapid success, the Swedish fintech’s strategic partnerships with leading payment service providers (PSPs) helped to expand its offerings to more merchants and customers.

Competitor analysis: Klarna’s biggest rival, Affirm, has 3.7 million active US cardholders, per its fiscal Q2 2026 earnings. 

While Klarna has 5 million cardholders globally, it’s unclear how many of them are American cardholders, suggesting Affirm could be holding onto its stateside dominance: We forecast that Affirm is hanging on as the leading US BNPL provider with $40.51 billion in BNPL payment volume this year, compared with Klarna’s $35.75 billion. 

Implications for installment providers: Klarna’s cardholder base still pales in comparison to most issuers’ credit cardholder bases.

Issuers are holding onto customers by offering deeper benches of banking products, like savings accounts and insurance products, that fintechs’ nascent neobanks lack. That’s likely one reason issuers’ card-linked installments consistently outperform BNPL fintechs in terms of customer satisfaction, per JD Power.