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Speaker 1: Let's get to the corporate story around the fintech space

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Speaker 1: and the Swedish buy now, pay later firm Clan are

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Speaker 1: pushing really interestingly into retail banking by rolling out digital

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Speaker 1: accounts in the US and much of Europe. It's happening,

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Speaker 1: of course, as the firm prepares for an IPO potentially

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Speaker 1: in the US. Plan A CEO and co founder, Sebastian

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Speaker 1: Cimatkowski joins me now from Stockholm for the latest Sebastian,

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Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time taught us about what

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Speaker 1: this push then into retail banking says about your ambitions,

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Speaker 1: Klana's ambitions to push further into this space, what it

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Speaker 1: could mean as well for the top line in terms

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Speaker 1: of revenues.

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Speaker 2: I think, you know, backing instry is so interesting because

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Speaker 2: it's one of the probably least competitive round the high

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Speaker 2: virus of entry law. You know, you have to be

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Speaker 2: a big volume cost company to be able to operate

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Speaker 2: in just a lot of regulations and stuff. So but

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Speaker 2: ever since fifteen we said that the future of financial

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Speaker 2: services will be in digital aipower and financial assystem that

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Speaker 2: really works on the behalf of the customer as you're

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Speaker 2: spending and say Hey, you're overpaying on the mortgage. Let

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Speaker 2: me renegotiate that for you. Let me fix you know,

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Speaker 2: let me make sure to save your time and money.

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Speaker 2: And ever since that has been the direction of the company.

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Speaker 2: And I think now this for us is one of

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Speaker 2: those huge steps when we're now starting to offer it

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Speaker 2: deposits accounts or positive balances accounts across both Europe and

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Speaker 2: the US, which is also unheard of, right because banks

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Speaker 2: usually would go like one market at a time, and

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Speaker 2: we're launching it in over ten markets at the same

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Speaker 2: point of time. So it's super exciting for us. And

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Speaker 2: it's very important, as Klon is both about credit payments

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Speaker 2: and debit payments where you pay the full amount immediately,

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Speaker 2: which is already thirty percent of or one hundred billion

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Speaker 2: dollars annual volume.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So look, it is ambitious, as you say, and you're

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Speaker 1: taking on the lights of JP Morgan, you're taking lights

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Speaker 1: of city and others. Do you have a sense of

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Speaker 1: about how much market share you could carve out?

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Speaker 3: Well, I am.

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Speaker 2: Only I'm very very convinced that's what's going to happen

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Speaker 2: with technology here. We're going to see a disruption in

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Speaker 2: the in the retail banking industry, and that out of

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Speaker 2: that will emerge probably three for large global retail bank

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Speaker 2: players which you know very likely to meet. Could be Klana,

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Speaker 2: could be Revolute, could be a new bank, could be

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Speaker 2: a few of those who have already proven Now that

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Speaker 2: you know, we have eighty million users worldwide, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: acquiring eighty million users and then starting offering them more

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Speaker 2: and more rich banking services is pretty unheard of. There

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Speaker 2: are few banks of that size, but we're obviously not

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Speaker 2: yet serving them with a full offering yet.

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Speaker 3: But as we do that, we think it's going.

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Speaker 2: To outcompete because the incumbents are simply poorer from a

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Speaker 2: technology perspective, and also much much more costs, right. I mean,

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Speaker 2: if you compare the cost at which we delivered these

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Speaker 2: services to the big banks, is a huge difference.

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Speaker 3: So I think that this is just the beginning.

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Speaker 2: And just like we've been talking about self driving cars

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Speaker 2: for many years and now I actually went on a

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Speaker 2: way more in San Francisco has actually worked.

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Speaker 3: I think this will eventually happen. It's just a matter of.

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Speaker 1: Time, Okay. And in terms of projections around top line

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Speaker 1: numbers revenue streams, do you have some estimates. Do you

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Speaker 1: have some kind of ballpark figures that you're looking at

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Speaker 1: as you project out in terms of the potential value

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Speaker 1: of this push.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean for us, one of the biggest things with

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Speaker 2: this for us is that our volumes are over one

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Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars per year, but so far those money

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Speaker 2: has instantly been pushed back to the bank of the

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Speaker 2: customers to the other networks like Visa and MasterCard. And

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Speaker 2: with us having positive balances, this means that more of

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Speaker 2: the money will stay within our network, more of those

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Speaker 2: positive balances will build up in our network, and that's

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Speaker 2: obviously going to have a dramatic impact on both our

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Speaker 2: payments costs as well as our cost of funding. We

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Speaker 2: have already offered very attractive deposits historically. But what's really

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Speaker 2: cool about this positive balance account in Europe is we're

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Speaker 2: going to offer up to three and a half percent

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Speaker 2: interest on that balance account, which I think most European

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Speaker 2: consumers have not been spoiled with that kind of positive

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Speaker 2: interest on their debut accounts.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you got that interest offering in you've got

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Speaker 1: the banking license in Europe. Of course, you don't have

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Speaker 1: a banking license in the US, yet are you making

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Speaker 1: progress on that front? I know this is an ambition

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Speaker 1: of yours. What is the time frame? Do you need

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Speaker 1: to get that banking license before the IPO?

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Speaker 3: No, I don't think that's the prequisite.

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Speaker 2: I think I mean to somebody, our US success almost

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Speaker 2: took a lit bit by surprise, right, Like I mean,

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Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, our US business was non existent. Today

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Speaker 2: it's the largest part of our business, both in revenue

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Speaker 2: and number of customers. It's over thirty million. We're probably

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Speaker 2: gonna hit over a billion dollars in revenue in the

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Speaker 2: US pretty soon. So but that has obviously made sure

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Speaker 2: that we are doubling down our efforts to accelerate rolling

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Speaker 2: out new services in the US as well. But especially

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Speaker 2: when we talk about things like banklizes, it does take

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Speaker 2: some time.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: It took us a few years to get our europe

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Speaker 2: of accay license. So we don't want to make you

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Speaker 2: know the dependency on the IPO to that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what are you saying in terms of consumer behavior

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Speaker 1: in the US, you see any softness at all, Sebastian,

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Speaker 1: or are they holding up in terms of that resilience?

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Speaker 1: And you sing a change in consumer habits.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm a little bit confused about the reports around

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Speaker 4: that because from my perspective, when we analyzed our numbers,

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Speaker 4: and you know, again considering that we have over over

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Speaker 4: half of the top one hundred US we tell us

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Speaker 4: that we work with, we we do have quite attract

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Speaker 4: you know, interesting numbers to follow these things.

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Speaker 3: But my impression was that that you know.

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Speaker 2: Christmas Is actually would have been a little bit softer

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Speaker 2: that we saw about nine months ago, but thanks to

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Speaker 2: a lot of discounting, the volumes were pushed up and that.

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Speaker 3: Didn't really materialize.

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Speaker 2: And now as I'm hearing some of these retailers report

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Speaker 2: softing numbers, we actually see the opposite.

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Speaker 3: Have seen quite a good.

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Speaker 2: And strong solid sales in the US, so so not

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Speaker 2: not really something we have been able.

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Speaker 1: So okay, on the IPO, Sebastian, how much enthusiasm have

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Speaker 1: you seen for that IPO so far?

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Speaker 2: Well, we're very flattered by media attention to it, at

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Speaker 2: least since it seems to be written about quite a lot.

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Speaker 1: But I think that's like investors from investors.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that, like you know, from investors.

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Speaker 2: I mean, obviously we had you know, one or two

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Speaker 2: weeks ago a pretty you know, dramatic event in the

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Speaker 2: stock market, right so that you know, you can kind

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Speaker 2: of see I think before that there was like more

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Speaker 2: of an acceptance we're going to go into a peer

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Speaker 2: time where you know, IPOs are going to start happening

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Speaker 2: in there's going to be more interesting in these But

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Speaker 2: I mean, in our opinion, I think that what people

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Speaker 2: really appreciate mostly about Klana is that two years ago

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Speaker 2: this business was you know, very much attractive, growing fast

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Speaker 2: in the US, but also loss making. And in just

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Speaker 2: two years we have increased revenue by fifty percent, we

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Speaker 2: have increased gross profit by one hundred percent, and we

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Speaker 2: reduce costs in thirty percent, which means that now we're

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Speaker 2: are you know, profitable, And I think those kind of

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Speaker 2: financial performances obviously do raise the eyeboras a little bit

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Speaker 2: with investors also, as we have, due to Ai, committed

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Speaker 2: to continue shrinking the company. We've already gone from four

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Speaker 2: to half thousand to three and a half thousand in

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Speaker 2: the last year, and we are committed to continuing on

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Speaker 2: that path, not by layoffs but simply by natural attrition.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you've been an early mover on Jenai, and you

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Speaker 1: reached out to Sam Moultman of Chat to ebt open

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Speaker 1: Ai pretty pretty early on in all of this, what's

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Speaker 1: been one of the most surprising things that stood out

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Speaker 1: to you as you've embedded some of this GENAI across

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Speaker 1: the business.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that it is to me in a

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Speaker 2: way I would actually partially say this like I was

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Speaker 2: even you know, kind of pulled into the hype a

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Speaker 2: year ago where a little bit like we you know

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Speaker 2: again self driving cars. You know, we used to read

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Speaker 2: about them in the press every day and then you

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Speaker 2: would look out.

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Speaker 3: The window and like, where are they? Where are they

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Speaker 3: not happening? And now it's actually happening.

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Speaker 2: And I think that, like to somebody I was almost

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Speaker 2: drawn into the hype a year ago as well, It's like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: in the year you know, the whole thing will already

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Speaker 2: have like totally dramatically change everything, and now you almost

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Speaker 2: have the opposite. You hear people go oh, we tried it,

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Speaker 2: and give us the results and so forth. But in tonally,

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Speaker 2: what I'm seeing to plan is that it is working.

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Speaker 2: It's just it will take a little bit further time

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Speaker 2: before it will have the full implications.

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Speaker 3: To us.

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Speaker 2: We've already had delivered so fantastic results, but we were

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Speaker 2: super excited.

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Speaker 3: What's coming in the next.

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Speaker 1: Four months before we let you go? It's about you, look,

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Speaker 1: what do we win you back? You're going to list

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Speaker 1: in the US. That's a suggestion, that's the expectation. What

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Speaker 1: does Europe and the UK need to do? Is there

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Speaker 1: anything they could do to win this listing?

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Speaker 2: Well, one thing that I have said to regulators in

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Speaker 2: the year, because there's been so much discussion in Brussels

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Speaker 2: as well, how do we create a competitive market? And

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Speaker 2: I have suggested actually get some positive from some of

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Speaker 2: the foreign ministers. I was invited with all the finance

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Speaker 2: finasters of you. Is that I think that if if

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Speaker 2: Europe will never you know, will never agree on like where.

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Speaker 3: Should listing should the big stock market be? Is it Prairi,

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Speaker 3: is is it Frankfurt? Is it you know whatever, European country?

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Speaker 2: So the only way to actually get this to work

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Speaker 2: is if if you would mandate all the stockingcases in

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Speaker 2: Europe so that any stock that is listed in one

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Speaker 2: is automatically trading in another. I think that could reach

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Speaker 2: the critical mass to create an investor base that is,

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Speaker 2: you know, similar size the one we see in the US,

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Speaker 2: because that's really one of the biggest challenges when you

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Speaker 2: make US comparisons. If a company like ours is already

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Speaker 2: mostly US business from revenue size, it will have to

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Speaker 2: be a you know, a similar size and investment base

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Speaker 2: and stock market size to make it a relevant listing point.

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Speaker 1: Okay, look, Sebastian really appreciated time as ever really important

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Speaker 1: updates coming through from the business clan a CEO and

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Speaker 1: co founder Sebastian Cimatkowski on the latest Thank you, Sebastian.

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Speaker 1: As that company of course prepares for that IPO likely

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Speaker 1: the summer of next year, is what we understand