- Ant Financial’s mobile wallet subsidiary, Alipay, had already been working with Klarna;
- The idea is that the patnership will grow globally.
According to CNBC, Ant Financial, the payment branch of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has bought a minority stake in the Swedish fintech Klarna.
The announcement was made by Klarna, but the deal’s amount was not disclosed. A spokesperson for Klarna told CNBC that the stake was under 1% of ownership in the firm.
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Until last week, when the fintech reported its first anual loss, Klarna was known as a profitable unicorn, having hit a $5.5 billion valuation last year following a $460 million funding round.
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Also according to CNBC, Ant Financial’s mobile wallet subsidiary, Alipay, had already been working with Klarna, embedding its payment platform into Alibaba-owned AliExpress to offer financing to the e-commerce website’s users.
According to the Financial Times, shoppers on Ali Express can use Klarna’s pay later services in some countries already.
The idea is that the patnership will grow globally, helping to push Alibaba business further into western markets. Klarna is a fully regulated bank since 2017, and according to the fintech, the partnership with Ant Financial will “deepen ongoing collaborations” with Alipay.
