双语:Klarna: Getting More Ambitious
发布时间:2017年11月02日
发布人:nanyuzi  

Klarna: Getting More Ambitious

Klarna:雄心愈壮


A payments unicorn seeks to become a dray-horse bank

独角兽支付公司欲成传统零售银行


There is a through-the-looking-glass quality to the blue-lit tunnel that leads into the headquarters of Klarna, a Swedish online-payments firm. And there is something back-to-front about the company itself. It is a startup firm that grew up in Europe, and is now seeking to expand into America – the reverse of the usual pattern. Unlike most tech unicorns galloping to expand their market share, it already makes a profit. Even more strikingly, it plans to move from an area of financial ferment – mobile payments – into the sterile old business of retail banking. Investors are giddy about its plans, however unusual: a funding round last year valued the firm, whose name is Swedish for “getting clearer”, at $2.25 billion, up by almost a billion on the year before.


通过那蓝光照亮的隧道进入瑞典网络支付公司Klarna的总部时,颇有走进《艾丽斯镜中奇遇》的感觉。这家公司还有几分颠倒行事的味道。作为在欧洲成长的创业公司,Klarna正努力扩展至美国——与通常的模式相反。有别于一心扩展市场份额的大多数高科技独角兽,Klarna已实现盈利。更引人注目的是,该公司计划从移动支付这一金融热土转移至零售银行这项贫瘠的传统业务。无论该计划有多么不同寻常,投资者却为之兴奋若狂:这家在瑞典语中名为“愈加清晰”的公司去年一轮融资的估值为22.5亿美元,较前年上升近十亿。

 

Klarna’s business “is quite basic”, says Sebastian Siemiatkowski, its founder and boss. Some 65,000 online merchants have so far hired it to run their checkouts. Its main appeal, for both retailers and their customers, is the simplicity of its system. Shoppers do not have to dole out credit-card details or remember a new password. Instead, they can simply give an e-mail and a delivery address, and leave the payment to be sorted out later. (Klarna pays the retailer in the meantime, and bears the risk that shoppers will not stump up in the end – something few other payment firms do.) Customers who have previously used one Klarna-run checkout are recognised when they visit another, further reducing the need to fill out online forms. All this hugely increases the “conversion” rate – the proportion of customers who actually make a purchase after putting an item into their online “basket”.


Klarna的业务“相当简单”,其创始人及总裁塞巴斯蒂安·西米亚特科夫斯基(Sebastian Siemiatkowski)表示。迄今已有约6.5万网上商户利用Klarna收款。对于零售商及其顾客而言,该平台的引人之处主要是系统简便。购物者无需输入信用卡的详细信息或记住新密码,而仅需提供电子邮箱和送货地址,余下的支付过程平台会自行处理。(Klarna会立即向零售商支付货款,承担购物者不一定最终付款的风险——其他支付公司很少这么做。)曾使用Klarna支付的顾客在光顾利用此平台的其他商户时会被识别出来,进一步减免填写在线表格的手续。所有这一切大大提升了“转化率”——顾客把商品放入网上“购物车”后实际购买的比率。


Like many fintech firms, Klarna believes that its algorithms do a better job of identifying creditworthy customers than the arthritic systems used by conventional financial firms. It relies on the e-mail and delivery addresses supplied, as well as the size and type of purchase, the device used, time of day and other variables. This not only allows it to bear the risk that customers fail to pay when Klarna bills them, but also to offer them extended payment plans, for a fee. These loans have higher margins than the cut-throat online-payment business – although the giants of the industry, such as PayPal, are experimenting with similar offerings.


跟许多金融科技公司一样,Klarna认为其算法比传统金融机构采用的僵硬体系更能辨别信誉良好的客户。除了客户提供的电邮及收货地址,该算法还运用顾客购物的金额和种类、所用设备、时段及其他变量作分析。因此,Klarna不但能承担风险,无惧寄送账单时顾客赖账,还可向顾客收取一定费用以提供延期付款的服务。相比竞争激烈的网上支付业务,这类贷款的利润率更高,但该行业的各巨头,如PayPal,也正尝试提供同类产品。


Klarna handled sales of roughly $10 billion in 2014 (compared with PayPal’s $235 billion), generating $300m in revenue, all in Europe. (It has not yet made public figures for last year.) It handles 40% of online payments in Sweden. In 2014 it bought a German firm, Sofort, expanding its presence there. It thinks it can continue to grow in Europe, but its main focus now is America, where it launched in September.


2014年,Klarna处理的交易额约为100亿美元(PayPal的数字为2350亿美元),创造了三亿美元的收入,全部来自欧洲。(公司去年的数据尚未公开。)Klarna处理瑞典40%的在线支付。在2014年购入德国公司Sofort后,Klarna把业务扩展至德国。该公司认为可继续在欧洲拓展,但目前的主要焦点是美国。它已于去年9月登陆美国市场。


Caution: reimagining under way

小心:重塑进行中


Klarna has not been signing up American retailers as quickly as it had anticipated. But it hopes two global trends will speed its expansion. The more that online shopping moves to phones, the more pressing it is for all online traders to make their checkouts quick and easy to use, but still safe. Customers particularly detest typing in credit card numbers on their phones, especially if asked to do so in public – while riding a busy bus, say. Klarna reckons over 60% of its business today involves mobile shopping, compared with less than 10% two years ago. Some retailers, such as sellers of shoes and clothes, report an especially rapid shift to mobile.


Klarna招揽美国零售商的速度不如预期,但公司寄望全球的两大趋势帮助其加速扩张。越多的网络购物转向手机,所有网络商家就越迫切地要把支付程序变得快捷易用,而且还要保证安全。顾客尤其讨厌在手机上输入信用卡号,特别是在公众场合(比如在拥挤的公交车里)被要求这么做。Klarna估计目前其60%的业务涉及移动购物,而两年前这一数字不足10%。服装和鞋履等一些零售商表示,其业务向移动端的转移尤为快速。


The other broad trend is for shopping across national borders. Online markets, such as Wish.com, connect bargain-hungry consumers in rich countries to producers of clothes, watches, toys or jewellery in, for example, China. Klarna works with Wish on European sales, letting customers pay for goods ordered cross-border only after getting them, which can take weeks. That reassures shoppers not ready to trust an anonymous Chinese T-shirt firm to deliver. Many sellers are appalled by the prospect of having to comply with different countries’ financial laws, say on extending credit, so they readily outsource payments.


另一大趋势是跨境购物。Wish.com这类在线市场为爱买便宜货的富裕国家顾客寻觅到成衣、手表、玩具或珠宝制造商,比如各类中国厂商。Klarna与Wish.com合作处理其欧洲的支付业务,让顾客在收到跨境订购的货物后才付款,过程可能历时数周。购物者不一定信任中国某家不知名的T恤厂商能诚信交货,而这样的安排使其放心。许多商家对必须满足不同国家金融法规的合规要求不胜其烦,比如提供消费信贷,所以他们乐于把支付环节外包。


Klarna, in contrast, is a glutton for regulatory punishment. In fact, it is entering the most regulated bit of finance: retail banking. It is licensed as a bank in Sweden, which allows it to collect deposits from all over Europe. Mr Siemiatkowski sees this as a cheap source of financing, but also as a big opportunity. Just like online shoppers, he argues, bank customers are desperate for a safe-but-simple mobile interface like the one Klarna offers in payments. The firm’s 45m users provide it with a big and growing pool of potential banking customers who already have an inkling of the sort of service it can provide. “In the longer term we need to reimagine what banks really are,” he says, sounding like a typical fintech boss at last.


相反,Klarna全然不怕监管处罚。事实上,Klarna正步入金融业内监管最严的领域:零售银行业务。该公司在瑞典已获得银行牌照,可从欧洲各地吸储。西米亚特科夫斯基将此视为廉价的融资来源,同时也是巨大的机会。他认为,银行顾客和网上购物者一样,都极希望找到像Klarna支付平台那样安全而简单的移动界面。该公司的4500万用户为其提供了大量潜在的银行客户,而且数目还在不断增加,他们多少已体验过Klarna所能提供的服务。“长远来看,我们需要重塑银行的实质。”他说道,这听起来终于像金融科技老板的惯用口吻了。


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