Modern card issuing platform Marqeta has furthered its partnership with Klarna to expand into several new countries with buy now, pay later (BNPL) services, virtual cards and other payments-related features, per a Tuesday (Dec. 7) press release.
The new countries are the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
Klarna makes use of the Marqeta Just-in-Time funding feature to get control over entire transactions, along with Marqeta’s technology and suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) to work with customizable product experiences.
According to the release, the European expansion initially began in May 2021, when Klarna debuted its U.K. shopping app. Then, in September, Marqeta supported the one-time Klarna virtual cards in all markets.
The partnership between the companies initially began in 2018, when Klarna began using Marqeta’s card issuing platform in the U.S. to power the virtual card on the Klarna mobile shopping app.
Marqeta then supported Klarna’s launch in Australia in 2020, along with a recent expansion to New Zealand.
Klarna has also been expanding elsewhere in the world, PYMNTS writes, including to Portugal, offering its “Pay in 3” function there.
See also: Klarna Launches its Pay in 3 BNPL Option in Portugal
Klarna is now active in 19 markets across three continents.
“Pay in 3” lets customers pay for things in three installments without interests or fees. Klarna continues its practice of charging the retailers offering the BNPL service as opposed to the customer.
Tradeinn, Sklum, Blackpeach and ISTO were the initial retailers Klarna partnered with in Portugal, saying there would be more to come.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, praised Portugal as a place “with a population of early digital adopters who have already started to actively turn away from high-cost credit options.”
PYMNTS writes that Klarna is expecting to see a huge boost in holiday sales this season, with 17 million U.K. customers using BNPL recently, according to the BBC.
However, there have also been calls to regulate BNPL, fearing a bloated new amount of debt creation.
Read more: BNPL Firm Klarna Expected to See Biggest Holiday Yet in UK