Klarna Teams With Ingenico on In-Store BNPL

Klarna has partnered with payments terminal firm Ingenico to expand its buy now, pay later service at in-store checkout.

The partnership will “facilitate the roll out of Klarna’s flexible payment options at the point of sale using PPaaS, Ingenico’s innovative, cloud Payments Platform-as-a-Service,” Ingenico said in a Monday (Jan. 16) press release.

While in-store retail is still consumers’ primary shopping channel, “rolling out new solutions to in-store payment devices has traditionally been complex and expensive, hindering innovation and slowing down the deployment of new services,” according to the release.

Ingenico said in the release that PPaaS lets its clients — banks and merchant acquirers — choose from a catalog of payments and value-added services with no need for software development or “deployment across a variety of terminal brands.”

The Klarna/Ingenico collaboration is happening at a time when innovation has become mandatory for in-store retailers.

Research showed retailers in the grocery and convenience, non-grocery and pharmacy segments all making investments in payment innovations, likely because of changes in how consumers shop.

“When consumers can find the same products just as easily online as in-store, user experience becomes paramount to winning shoppers’ loyalty,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.

Payment choice is critical, as consumers may choose to use debit; credit; buy now, pay later (BNPL); or a mix of these options according to their budget priorities. To that end, 55% of grocery retailers are now innovating their available payment methods, PYMNTS’ research showed, while 42% of these stores are employing innovations to detect fraud.

Non-grocery retailers, meanwhile, were the most likely to invest in developing loyalty programs, refunds and data analytics in-house.

“Customer shopping and payments data provides actionable insights that can help these retailers develop new engagement strategies and streamline payment processes in a manner aligned with consumer preferences,” PYMNTS wrote.

Meanwhile, a survey by American Express and PayPal indicated that consumers’ payment needs are rapidly shifting, as PYMNTS reported Monday. Shoppers said security and choice of payment method are their most important considerations, with 81% and 50% citing these features, respectively. In addition, 27% of respondents said it was very or extremely important to them to be able to pay using mobile wallets like PayPal or Apple Pay.