Klarna is bringing its flexible payments into the heart of European high streets with a new Tap to Pay feature across 14 markets, turning the Klarna app into a contactless wallet and making in-store shopping feel more like e-commerce checkout. For retailers, it is a significant push to blend buy-now-pay-later style flexibility with tap-and-go convenience, where more than 80% of European spending still happens in physical stores.
Klarna turns its app into a contactless wallet
The new Tap to Pay feature lets shoppers pay in-store by simply tapping their phone at the terminal, with everything managed inside the Klarna app rather than through a separate wallet. Klarna says the experience is designed to remove friction at the till, replacing card hunting or app juggling with one central place to view, choose, and complete payments. Using NFC technology, the app acts like a contactless card, but with the added option to set up a flexible payment plan before tapping.
Tap to Pay builds directly on the rapid global adoption of the debit-first Klarna Card, which is now used by more than 4 million consumers. The card runs as a debit by default but allows shoppers to activate credit when needed in the Klarna app, and it is accepted at over 150 million merchant locations worldwide through Visa Flexible Credential, significantly widening where Tap to Pay-style transactions can happen.
How Tap to Pay works in store
From a user perspective, the flow is simple and closely mirrors mobile wallet experiences. Shoppers open their Klarna Card inside the app, keep it in debit mode, or choose to create a flexible payment plan, then select Tap to Pay before holding their phone to the terminal. Depending on their choices, the purchase can either clear as a standard debit transaction or be spread into instalments, all without leaving the Klarna environment.
The feature is currently live for Klarna consumers in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Norway, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden, and works on both iOS and Android devices. Support for the Klarna Credit Card will follow, giving existing credit users the same tap-based in-store flexibility.
Why this matters for European retail
With more than 80% of European shopping still happening in physical stores, Tap to Pay is Klarna’s bid to bring its AI-powered payments network into the everyday point of sale, not just ecommerce checkout. By matching the speed of contactless with the choice of flexible instalments, Klarna is positioning itself as an all-round spending companion that can be used online, in-store, and via Apple Pay and Google Pay.
The rollout also sits on top of a large and growing ecosystem: Klarna counts over 114 million global active users, processes around 3.4 million transactions per day, and is trusted by more than 850,000 retailers, including Uber, H&M, Saks, Sephora, Macy’s, Ikea, Expedia Group, Nike, and Airbnb. For fashion and lifestyle merchants, this in-store expansion could bring higher conversion from Klarna’s existing app users straight to the shop floor, especially in markets where contactless is already a consumer habit.
Klarna’s vision for being “everywhere for everything”
In the launch announcement, David Fock, Chief Product & Design Officer at Klarna, said the feature “brings us closer to our vision of Klarna being everywhere for everything,” describing how customers can now “you can set up a flexible payment plan and tap to pay in seconds, all inside the Klarna app.” The move extends Klarna’s latest product cycle, which includes the global push of its debit-first card and recent membership launches that bundle travel, cashback, and lifestyle perks.
For shoppers, the appeal lies in having one app that handles discovery, budgeting, and payment across channels. For retailers, it offers another way to tap into Klarna’s data-driven network and loyalty effect without needing to overhaul in-store hardware beyond standard contactless terminals. As Tap to Pay scales across Europe, it will test how far consumers are willing to swap traditional bank cards and separate wallets for a single, fintech-led, tap-and-go solution.
