PayPal is launching a “buy now, pay later” service in the U.K. that lets shoppers finance their purchases over three interest-free monthly installments. The company has grown customer accounts by 300% year-on-year in the second quarter and now has more than 24m active users in the U.K., dwarfing Klarna’s almost 10m customers in the country.
“What we’ve seen over last 6 months or so is a significant rise in the shift from physical to digital transactions across the whole of the U.K. retail base,” Rob Harper, PayPal’s U.K. director of enterprise accounts, told CNBC in an interview. “We’ve also seen the rise of buy now, pay later solutions in the market; brands like Klarna, but also smaller brands that are entering into the market that are not as recognizable as PayPal.”