Klarna plunged to the largest annual loss within the Swedish “purchase now, pay later” firm’s historical past, however claimed it was on observe to return to revenue because it lower credit score losses on the finish of the 12 months.

The privately held Swedish fintech, whose valuation was slashed from $46bn in 2021 to $6.7bn in June 2022, made an annual internet lack of SKr10.4bn ($1bn), a 47 per cent enhance in contrast with 2021.

However within the fourth quarter, it greater than halved its internet losses from SKr4.6bn a 12 months earlier to SKr1.9bn in 2022. Credit score losses have been SKr1.4bn within the fourth quarter, an enchancment of 18 per cent on the identical interval in 2021.

“We’re making concrete progress in direction of profitability, concurrently driving progress nicely forward of ecommerce and lowering credit score losses and prices,” stated Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s chief government.

Klarna turned a logo of the exuberance of the fintech growth, turning into Europe’s highest valued personal firm as on-line purchasing boomed in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, earlier than it was humbled by an 85 per cent lower in its valuation and a ten per cent discount of its workforce.

Siemiatkowski instructed the Monetary Instances in November that he anticipated the corporate to start out making earnings once more by August or September this 12 months, though he warned it may make a full-year loss in 2023. It final made an annual revenue in 2018, a quarterly revenue within the second quarter of 2019 and a month-to-month revenue in August 2020.