This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on August 18th, 2026.
Fast, cocky, unpredictable. Klarna built its success on being everything the big banks were not. But when the stock falls more than 20 percent, the market’s demands become clear. Now the payments giant may be forced to do something that has long been unthinkable.
It’s fun to be an upstart in the business world. Especially in banking, where the market consists of gray, dull colossuses that have looked much the same for decades.
Klarna has made the most of that position. The company built a contemporary brand, worked with unexpected celebrities, and used a tone that was radical — compared with dry big banks, at least. While its competitors got stuck in a kind of generic airport advertising, Klarna could come across as young, modern and forward-leaning. It worked perfectly well as long as Klarna had everything to gain and fairly little to lose.
But on the stock market things work differently. There, expectations are everything.
In the equity market you get an immediate verdict when your numbers don’t match what others had in mind — and that can be painful.
Klarna is going through exactly that right now.
When the company reported its quarterly figures on Tuesday, it beat analysts’ expectations. But after a weaker full-year forecast than anticipated, the stock fell more than 20 percent in early trading. Several senior executives are also leaving.
Now it looks as though Klarna has to change course — and become a considerably duller company. After its listing on the US exchange, the punky attitude to both marketing and strategy may turn into a liability.
The stock market wants results first and foremost. Predictable ones.
This thesis could explain the departures now taking place from Klarna’s top management. Chief operating officer Camilla Giesecke left in the spring, and on Tuesday came word that both chief financial officer Niclas Neglén and chief marketing officer David Sandström will step down.
Together they have taken the company through a listing and into something new. But this phase is defined by different qualities — and the team that ran the first legs is not necessarily the right one to lead the next. Perhaps they have realized this themselves? These are senior people who have worked at Klarna for a long time. But their job descriptions are now something else entirely from when they started. A greyer phase is beginning — and a shift of key people may be exactly right for it.
Much suggests that Klarna needs to grow up. It would do the company good to become a slightly dreary and predictable listed business — like everyone else in its category. Cutting the full-year revenue forecast, as in Tuesday’s quarterly report, creates an anxiety that is hard to recover from. A fifth of the already pressured market capitalization went up in smoke immediately. Klarna’s strategy and plans may well be right, but the market isn’t following. It wants you to keep what you previously promised, regardless of what happens internally or in the wider world.
A new Klarna could be defined by entirely different qualities. Stability, and an ability to beat modestly set expectations. A locomotive moving slowly upward on the exchange at an unremarkable pace. A management team that inspires confidence in analysts and shareholders.
That stands in sharp contrast to the Klarna that once made a racket in Stockholm’s dry financial world. And whose pace, innovation and execution created a new giant among Swedish and international banks. It is a remarkable feat — and one that has paid off well for those who believed in CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s vision.
But now the market wants something else. Something considerably duller.
Klarna’s rock ‘n’ roll era may be over.
