Fast-growing Swedish payments startup Klarna has acquired Germany's BillPay, a Berlin-based consumer financing outfit owned by UK payday lender Wonga.
Klarna is understood to be paying about £60 million for the 140-person BillPay business, which is licensed by BaFin and offers its products and services in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
BillPay is in the same market as Klarna, enabling online shops to offer invoice, direct debit and flexible pay later installments to customers at the checkout. Established in 2009, it claims 5000 online merchants and 12 million consumer users.
Klarna, which employs 1500 staff, works with 65,000 merchants to offer payments to more than 45 million users in Europe and North America. Backed by Sequoia Capital, the business is valued at £1.9 billion.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, comments: “Germany is one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world, and we are delighted to have strengthened our position here with this acquisition.”
The BillPay deal follows an agreement by Klarna in November to take on the team behind the bankrupt Berlin fintech startup Cookies. The Cookies app, founded by former N26 employees Garry Krugljakow and Lamine Cheloufi, aimed to simplify mobile money transfers.