Swedish Fintech company Klarna has launched KlarnaUSD — its first stablecoin. This represents a significant shift for a company with a management that has previously been a pronounced skeptic of cryptocurrency.
“Crypto has finally reached a stage where it is fast, affordable, secure and scalable. This marks the beginning of Klarna's entry into crypto,” says Sebastian Siemiatkowski (pictured), co-founder and CEO of Klarna.
The launch comes at the same time McKinsey estimates that annual transactions involving stablecoins now exceed $27 trillion, with growth rates that could see such solutions overtake traditional payment networks before the end of the decade. Although volumes still account for a small proportion of total cash flows globally, the pace of competition, inter alia, in cross-border payments, is rapidly changing.
The measure makes Klarna the first bank to launch a stablecoin on Tempo, a new independent blockchain started by Stripe and Paradigm, specifically designed for payments. With cross-border payments estimated to generate $120 billion in transaction fees annually, Klarna sees stable coins as a way to dramatically reduce costs for both consumers and merchants.
“With 114 million customers and $112 billion in annual trade volume, Klarna has the scale to change payments globally: With Klarna's reach and Tempo's infrastructure, we can challenge legacy networks and make payments faster and cheaper for everyone,” said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna. “Crypto has finally reached a stage where it is fast, affordable, secure and scalable. This marks the beginning of Klarna's entry into crypto, and I look forward to working with Stripe and Tempo to continue shaping the future of payments.”
KlarnaUSD is built on Open Issuance from Bridge, a leading stablecoin infrastructure platform and a Stripe company, and will launch on Tempo's main network in 2026. It is currently active on test networks and not publicly available, giving Klarna early access to its infrastructure for advanced testing, prototyping and integration. The partnership deepens the already extensive collaboration between Klarna and Stripe, covering payment infrastructure across Klarna's 26 markets globally.
The company describes this as the beginning of sharing its crypto initiatives more openly, and announces that a new partner in the ecosystem will be announced in the next few weeks.
