Klarna announced that it has entered into a $1.7 billion capital efficiency transaction structured as a Significant Risk Transfer (SRT), designed to free up capital and support continued growth in its lending business. The deal covers euro-denominated loans and is expected to enhance Klarna’s ability to scale lending while maintaining balance sheet efficiency.
The transaction is part of a three-year agreement with a consortium led by Värde Partners. It marks Klarna’s sixth SRT transaction and its largest to date, reflecting the company’s continued focus on optimizing capital deployment as it expands globally.
Klarna said the structure allows it to transfer credit risk on a defined loan portfolio to external investors while retaining the underlying assets on its balance sheet. This approach enables the company to reduce risk-weighted assets and redeploy capital into new lending activity, effectively increasing its lending capacity without requiring proportional balance sheet growth.
The announcement follows a recently disclosed $2 billion facility that supports up to $17 billion of U.S. financing expansion, further strengthening Klarna’s funding infrastructure. Together, these initiatives position the company to support more than $40 billion in lending capacity, underscoring its ambition to scale its consumer credit offerings, particularly in key markets such as the United States.
Klarna, which operates as a regulated bank, continues to leverage its banking license as a core strategic advantage, enabling access to funding structures traditionally used by established financial institutions. The company serves more than 118 million consumers globally and works with over one million merchants, processing millions of transactions daily across its payments and commerce network.
KEY QUOTE:
“Our banking license is one of our biggest competitive advantages. This is our largest and most efficient SRT transaction to date. These transactions allow us to maximize every unit of capital to support our continued momentum.”
Niclas Neglén, Chief Financial Officer of Klarna
