Our research validates that Klarna is at the cutting edge of buy now, pay later (BNPL) innovation, offering 35 of 49 features selected by our analysts based on their ability to differentiate BNPL providers.

But Klarna lacks 14 innovative features it may consider adding in the future. Performance varies across seven categories of features:

• Perfect: Shopping and Payments. Klarna shines in these two domains, offering all seven of the respective criteria.
• Great: Fee Avoidance. Klarna supports six of seven ways consumers could avoid fees for common transactions. The one exception? Late fees.
• Great: Account Management. All but one feature—one-click logout of all devices—is provided.
• Good: Rewards. Klarna offers four of seven features, but this category may be particularly costly to develop given the company’s financial straits.
• Weak: Security and Privacy. Fewer than half (three of seven) of the features in this section are supported. There’s room to grow.
• Weak: Financial Wellness. Only two of this category’s seven emerging features included in the study are offered by Klarna. Satisfying customers with these features is only half the game, though. Klarna also needs to sway regulators.

Dive Deeper

BNPL providers can use our self-evaluation tool to measure their features against Klarna’s and see how they rank in relation to customer demand.

Industry participants can study customer demand analysis of all 49 BNPL features in our “US Buy Now, Pay Later Feature Demand Report 2022.”