The buy now, pay later firm Klarna is testing its first stablecoin called KlarnaUSD, marking a pivot for the company whose CEO once criticized crypto.
The crypto asset is designed to be pegged to the dollar and is running on Tempo, a new blockchain from Stripe and Paradigm designed for payments.
With 114 million customers and $112 billion in annual gross merchandise volume, the Swedish-based firm is positioning itself to disrupt global payments.
The stablecoin targets cross-border payments, which rack up $120 billion in fees yearly, aiming to cut costs for users and merchants.
Says CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski,
“Crypto is finally at a stage where it is fast, low-cost, secure, and built for scale. This is the beginning of Klarna in crypto, and I’m excited to work with Stripe and Tempo to continue to shape the future of payments.”
The move comes as stablecoin transactions hit $27 trillion a year, according to McKinsey, potentially taking over legacy payment networks by 2030.
Klarna says it plans to bring the stablecoin to the public sometime next year.
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