Klarna: Getting More Ambitious(節(jié)選)
Caution: reimagining under way
小心：重塑進(jìn)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.
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.
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.
Klarna招攬美國零售商的速度不如預(yù)期，但公司寄望全球的兩大趨勢幫助其加速擴(kuò)張。越多的網(wǎng)絡(luò)購物轉(zhuǎn)向手機(jī)，所有網(wǎng)絡(luò)商家就越迫切地要把支付程序變得快捷易用，而且還要保證安全。顧客尤其討厭在手機(jī)上輸入信用卡號(hào)，特別是在公眾場合(比如在擁擠的公交車?yán)?被要求這么做。Klarna估計(jì)目前其60%的業(yè)務(wù)涉及移動(dòng)購物，而兩年前這一數(shù)字不足10%。服裝和鞋履等一些零售商表示，其業(yè)務(wù)向移動(dòng)端的轉(zhuǎn)移尤為快速。
另一大趨勢是跨境購物。Wish.com這類在線市場為愛買便宜貨的富裕國家顧客尋覓到成衣、手表、玩具或珠寶制造商，比如各類中國廠商。Klarna與Wish.com合作處理其歐洲的支付業(yè)務(wù)，讓顧客在收到跨境訂購的貨物后才付款，過程可能歷時(shí)數(shù)周。購物者不一定信任中國某家不知名的T恤廠商能誠信交貨，而這樣的安排使其放心。許多商家對(duì)必須滿足不同國家金融法規(guī)的合規(guī)要求不勝其煩，比如提供消費(fèi)信貸，所以他們樂于把支付環(huán)節(jié)外包。
相反，Klarna全然不怕監(jiān)管處罰。事實(shí)上，Klarna正步入金融業(yè)內(nèi)監(jiān)管最嚴(yán)的領(lǐng)域：零售銀行業(yè)務(wù)。該公司在瑞典已獲得銀行牌照，可從歐洲各地吸 儲(chǔ)。西米亞特科夫斯基將此視為廉價(jià)的融資來源，同時(shí)也是巨大的機(jī)會(huì)。他認(rèn)為，銀行顧客和網(wǎng)上購物者一樣，都極希望找到像Klarna支付平臺(tái)那樣安全而簡單的移動(dòng)界面。該公司的4500萬用戶為其提供了大量潛在的銀行客戶，而且數(shù)目還在不斷增加，他們多少已體驗(yàn)過Klarna所能提供的服務(wù)�！伴L遠(yuǎn)來看，我們需要重塑銀行的實(shí)質(zhì)�！彼f道，這聽起來終于像金融科技老板的慣用口吻了。
