Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) firm Klarna launched its new Pay Now option this week, which will be rolled out to all retailers by the end of Q1 2022.
If you’re using the feature, you just pay for the entire purchase in one go instead of splitting it into separate payments.
It appears to work just like PayPal – you click the Klarna button at check out and the retailer will take the payment from your linked credit or debit card.
Klarna already offers a pay now option in other countries, where it’s known as Sofort, a German payment service provider Klarna acquired in 2014.
It actually works slightly differently.
According to the website, you still have to enter some payment details and your pin in order to make a payment.
The UK version seems to be much more straightforward to use but, as MoneySavingExpert points out, there are plenty of reasons not to use it.
If your chosen payment option is credit card for example, you would actually lose Section 75 protection if you paid via Klarna.
This is less of a problem if you normally use a debit card, in which case you’d get Klarna’s purchase protection.
But there’s also the fact that you can’t complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you have a problem – instead, you’d have to try to resolve the issue using Klarna’s own complaints service.
And as you’re not using a credit product, this way of making purchases wouldn’t even improve your credit score.
Maybe it’s just a case of Klarna being too late to the pay now market – or maybe it’s just missing the tempting flexibility of the Monzo Flex.
