The news: Klarna will be the default payment option for Bolt’s CheckoutOS merchants, per a press release. 

• Bolt merchants will have a turnkey solution to offer Klarna financing.
• Klarna will be available as a one-click checkout solution.

Bolt and Klarna anticipate expanding their partnership to foreign markets and verticals.

Klarna’s gambit: Along with building out its Klarna Card, Klarna has been striking key partnerships with merchant networks, most recently with Clover, to gain visibility and penetration into new markets and verticals. 

Credit card dominance: Klarna ranks higher than any other BNPL company for customer satisfaction, according to J.D. Power, but it still falls behind card-linked installments.

That means Klarna needs to find ways to make its product as attractive as its credit card rivals.

Seamless solutions: To counter credit cards’ dominance in terms of ease of use, rewards, and flexibility, Klarna can leverage its default status on Bolt’s interface. 

Consumers often follow the path of least resistance at checkout, so if they have to manually select another payment method, they may use Klarna more often instead. 

Our take: Klarna faces multiple challenges. It has to increase its availability to US consumers while also rivaling credit cards that offer both installment plans and cash back or points that likely exceed the value of Klarna’s gift-based rewards system through Nift.

However, having default payment status on Bolt helps to push customers to Klarna—winning more default-status deals could help the BNPL provider capture even more volume.