Klarna, a global fintech company, has announced the launch of a new initiative to assist startups in developing proofs of concept (POC) in the ecommerce, data analytics, and fintech sectors. For three months, the BNPL pioneer will provide a limited number of start-ups and established businesses with free access to all products on its world-leading open banking platform and 15,000 banks.
The program’s objective is to speed up innovation in the creation of open banking use cases by giving innovators access to a free product development sandbox. It is part of Klarna’s technology platform, Klarna Kosma, which gives financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants the connectivity they need to build the next generation of fintech apps and services by providing simple and secure access via a single API.
Klarna vice president open banking Wilko Klaassen said, “Open Banking was introduced to wrest control of consumer data away from the big banks and make it securely available to drive innovation. With that data accessible through simple APIs, with consumers’ permissions, a whole new vista of potential use cases has opened up. The initiative we are launching today aims to add rocket fuel to the innovation process.”
Klarna’s consumer-facing platform received a new in-app search and comparison tool this week. Consumers can save money by using the tool to compare prices at thousands of retailers. Customers can narrow down their product searches by features, customer reviews, store availability, colour, size, and more. The company stated that this eliminates the frustration of sifting through millions of disorganized results at conventional search engines.
