Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, spoke at the Innovate Finance Global Summit – the flagship event of UK FinTech Week – where he discussed post-Brexit regulation, Klarna’s advertising methods and the future of innovation in Buy Now, Pay Later.

Key points covered include:

The opportunity Post-Brexit regulation presents: “What I've seen in the UK – which makes me very excited – is this amazing moment and drive and interest to take away some of the bad practices from Brussels in Europe, and actually write out regulation that keeps in mind that the strongest force is the customer. There's such a tremendous momentum around that and to some degree, customers know how to find stuff. The UK has a model that is right.”

Mistakes made around Klarna’s advertising methods: “Some of our branding and advertising is tied to the fact that we promote Klarna as a payment method. But in the UK – since we only offer credit – we took some of that with us and that wasn’t great. We should have thought about the fact that we're so deeply associated with credit, and that was a mistake on our side.

“The other side about our brand marketing is this idea that trust is built through a lot of middle aged white men in normal offices shaking hands, and consumers out there associate that with trust. I'm sorry to say so, but that's not the case. We trying to market a brand in a way that is approachable, available, and speaking the language of the customer.”

On regulation more widely: “Regulators like to say your losses cannot be higher than your earnings – that's a good outcome based on regulation and then let the industry innovate. Otherwise, what you're doing is reducing mobility for customers, and protecting the profitability of the banks as they are.”