Klarna Brings BNPL to High-Speed Rail With Eurostar Partnership

Pay-later platform Klarna has launched a partnership with rail service Eurostar.

The collaboration, announced Wednesday (April 2), lets travelers in the U.K. and France split the cost of their tickets into three interest-free payments, and marks Klarna’s first time working with a train provider.

“Eurostar has changed the way we travel between the UK and Europe … now Klarna is changing the way we pay for it,” Raji Behal, head of Klarna’s western and southern Europe operations, said in a news release.

“Whether you’re heading to Paris for a weekend getaway or Brussels for business, you can now check out with Klarna and choose to pay in full or split the cost over time.”

The release notes that the partnership is happening as Eurostar is seeing an increasing number of travelers use its service, following a year in which it carried a record 19.5 million travelers.

While the new agreement marks Klarna’s entry into the rail sector, the company is no stranger to the travel industry. Last year, Klarna launched partnerships with travel website Expedia and luggage/travel accessory company Brand Away.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has found that buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings such as Klarna have made significant inroads into the travel space. Nearly 20% of consumers surveyed said they opted to use BNPL as a payment option, according to “The Credit Economy: How Consumers are Approaching Holiday Spending and Travel,” a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and i2c.

In other pay-later news, PYMNTS explored the evolution of the sector in a conversation posted Wednesday with Splitit CEO Nandan Sheth.

As he told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, “things are fairly fragmented right now,” especially for consumers who look to use transactional credit, seeking longer-term loans from a bank, and then for one-off solutions, moving toward traditional point-of-sale (POS) lenders.

All the same, Sheth added, there are few principles that remain as consumers search for merchants and find deals.

“If I’m a dominant credit provider, whether it’s Klarna or a J.P. Morgan Chase, there’s a value and a utility in consolidating the credit needs of a consumer off of my [own] platform,” Sheth said. “You’ll see more of that happening, and consumers will find it easier to deal with their trusted credit providers.”

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