Raphael Stevens

Klarna said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million, significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago.
The Swedish payments startup said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.
It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.
The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.

Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.
It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.

Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.
Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.
Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI. More

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) firms like Klarna and Affirm are set to face formal regulation in the U.K. starting next year.
City Minister Emma Reynolds said the new rules were designed to tackle a sense of “wild west” in the BNPL space.
BNPL firms will be required to make upfront checks to ensure people can repay what they borrow and make it easier for customers to access refunds.

Klarna is synonymous with the “buy now, pay later” trend of making a purchase and deferring payment until the end of the month or paying over interest-free monthly installments.
Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The U.K. government on Monday laid out proposals to bring short-term loans under formal rules as it looks to clamp down on the “wild west” of the buy now, pay later sector.
Fintech firms like Klarna and Block’s Afterpay have flourished by offering interest-free financing on everything from fashion and gadgets to food deliveries — while at the same time stoking concerns around affordability. The space is highly competitive, with U.S. player Affirm launching in the U.K. just last year.

City Minister Emma Reynolds said in a statement Monday that the U.K.’s new rules were designed to tackle a sense of “wild west” in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space, adding the measures “will protect shoppers from debt traps and give the sector the certainty it needs to invest, grow, and create jobs.”
Under the U.K. proposals, BNPL firms will be required to make upfront checks to ensure people can repay what they borrow and make it easier for customers to access refunds.
Consumers will also be able to take BNPL complaints to the Financial Ombudsman, a service created by the U.K. Parliament to settle disputes between consumers and financial services firms.

The rules are expected to come into force next year, according to the government.
Klarna said it has long supported calls to bring BNPL into the regulatory fold. “It’s good to see progress on regulation, and we look forward to working with the FCA on rules to protect consumers and encourage innovation,” a spokesperson for the company told CNBC via email.

“Regulation will give clarity and consistency to the sector, establishing a consistent operating environment and compliance standards for all providers,” spokesperson for Clearpay, the U.K. arm of Afterpay, said in an emailed statement.
“It will also create a more sustainable foundation for the future of BNPL as it continues to grow as an everyday payment option for consumers.”
While buy now, pay later firms have publicly expressed support for regulation, many were concerned about regulators applying outdated rules to their business models. The Consumer Credit Act, which regulates lending and borrowing in the U.K., has existed for over 50 years.
For its part, the government said it plans to adapt the Consumer Credit Act to allow for a “modern, pro-growth framework that reflects how people borrow today.”
WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Affirm CEO Max Levchin More

Retail sales rose 5.1% from a year earlier in April, missing analysts’ estimates of 5.5% growth, according to a Reuters poll. Sales had grown by 5.9% in the previous month.
Industrial output grew 6.1% year on year in April, stronger than analysts’ expectations for a 5.5% rise, while slowing from the 7.7% jump in March.
Fixed-asset investment for the first four months this year, which includes property and infrastructure investment, expanded 4.0% from a year earlier.

Citizens are shopping at a supermarket in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu province, on March 9, 2024. 
Costfoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

China’s retail sales growth slowed in April, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Monday, signaling that consumption remains a worry for the world’s second-largest economy.
Retail sales rose 5.1% from a year earlier in April, missing analysts’ estimates of 5.5% growth, according to a Reuters poll. Sales had grown by 5.9% in the previous month.

Industrial output grew 6.1% year on year in April, stronger than analysts’ expectations for a 5.5% rise, while slowing down from the 7.7% jump in March, indicating the impact from U.S. tariffs was not as harsh as was being expected.
“We should be aware that there are still many unstable and uncertain factors in [the] external environment,” the statistics bureau said. “The foundation for sustained economic recovery needs to be further consolidated.”
Fixed-asset investment for the first four months this year, which includes property and infrastructure investment, rose 4.0%, slightly lower than analysts’ expectations for a 4.2% growth in a Reuters poll.
The urban unemployment rate in April eased to 5.1% from 5.2% in March, at a time when U.S.-China trade war had led economists to warn about substantial job losses in China.
U.S. President Donald Trump had placed tariffs of 145% on imports from China that came into effect in April, while Beijing had retaliated with 125% levies on American imports.

Answering questions on the impact of the ongoing trade conflict with the U.S., the statistics bureau spokesperson Fu Linghui stressed Beijing’s efforts aimed at diversifying exports to other regions, noting that the trade figures in April pointed to overall resilience.
China’s exports surged more than expected in April, as a jump in shipments to Southeast Asian countries helped it offset a sharp drop in outbound goods to the U.S.
In April, the U.S.-bound shipments plunged over 21% from a year earlier. In the first four months this year, China’s exports to the U.S. dropped 2.5%, according to customs data.
Fu added that the recent reduction in the mutual tariffs would benefit trade for both sides, while cautioning that domestic demand, including consumption, still lacked momentum.
Automobile sales grew just 0.7% last month from a year earlier, compared to 5.5% jump in March, despite an expanded program that subsidizes consumers and businesses to trade in vehicles and other select products, including smartphones and home appliances.
Within fixed asset investment, the drag from real estate worsened, falling 10.3% for the year as of April.
The real estate sector remained in a period of “adjustment” and pressure on the sector was still large in certain regions, said Fu.
A separate set of official data released by the statistics bureau on Monday showed existing home prices in 70 major cities fell at the fastest pace since last November, according to Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie.
China’s CSI 300 index fell 0.39% while the Chinese offshore yuan was little changed at 7.2133 against the greenback.

Cautious growth upgrades

Trade-war fears have receded after a meeting of U.S. and Chinese trade representatives in Switzerland earlier this month led to a lower set of levies between the world’s two largest economies. Beijing and Washington agreed to roll back most tariffs for 90 days, allowing some room for further negotiation to reach a more lasting deal.
That prompted a slew of global investment banks to raise their forecasts for China’s economic growth this year while paring back expectations for more proactive stimulus as Beijing strives to reach its growth target of around 5%.
Nomura raised its forecast for China’s GDP growth for quarter ending June to 4.8% from 3.7% on the back of robust economic data in April, while lifting the full-year growth projection to 3.7% from 3.5%.

Despite the near-term upside, the bank cautioned “a high risk of the economy suffering from a double whammy” due to the prolonged housing slump and possibility of U.S. ratcheting up tariffs again.
Trade truce with the U.S. came as the economic toll of tariffs on the economy was becoming difficult to ignore.
China’s factory activity had dropped to a 16-month low in April, with a gauge on new export orders sliding to its lowest since December 2022, a stark contrast to the industrial output data, indicating dampened sentiment over tariffs.
While industrial output measures the value of goods produced in sectors such as manufacturing, mining and utilities, the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index measures enterprises’ sentiment.
The wholesale prices posted the steepest drop in six months in April, while consumer prices fell for a third moth, underscoring the persistent deflationary pressure in the economy.
The key drag on retail sales was “weaker sentiment” and “somewhat faded effectiveness” of the trade-in program, Morgan Stanley said in a note Monday.
“Deflation could linger, given still elevated tariffs and reactive policy,” Morgan Stanely added, as higher tariffs will ultimately dampen external demand after the near-term export front-loading activity tapers off, exacerbating domestic excess capacity issue.
Despite the tariff reprieve, U.S. trade-weighted tariff rate on China remained elevated at 40%, well above the 11% levies before Trump returned to the office, according to the investment bank’s estimates.
Indicators show container bookings from China to the U.S. jumped last week following the tariff ceasefire, Tommy Xie, managing director and head of Asia macro research at OCBC Bank said in a note Monday.
The seven-day average container booking volume as of May 14 spiked by 277% compared to the week ending May 5, Xie said, citing data from container tracking software provider Vizion.
The Chinese government has implemented a raft of stimulus measures to stimulate consumption across different sectors and support businesses impacted by the tariffs and bolster employment.
Earlier this month, the People’s Bank of China announced to cut the seven-day reverse repurchase rates by 10 basis points to 1.4% from 1.5%. That will bring down its main policy rate, known as the loan prime rate, by around 10 basis points, according to the central bank’s Governor Pan Gongsheng.
The PBOC is expected to announce the one-year and five-year LPR for May on Tuesday.

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In the early 20th century, before America introduced an income tax, tariffs paid many of the government’s bills. President Donald Trump wants to revive that approach. He has repeatedly floated the idea of an “External Revenue Service”, under which Uncle Sam would scrap income taxes and instead rely on levies at the border, with foreigners, at least in theory, funding the American government. “It will be a BONANZA,” Mr Trump posted recently on his social-media site, claiming that tariffs could all but eliminate income taxes for people earning less than $200,000 a year. More

In the early 20th century, before America had an income tax, tariffs paid many of the government’s bills. President Donald Trump wants to revive that approach. He has repeatedly floated the idea of an “External Revenue Service”, under which Uncle Sam would scrap income taxes and instead rely on border levies, with foreigners, at least in theory, funding the American government. “It will be a BONANZA,” Mr Trump posted recently on his social-media site, claiming tariffs could all but eliminate income taxes for people earning less than $200,000 a year. More

FA Playbook

About 1 in 7 Americans will spend at least $100,000 out of pocket for long-term care.
Health insurance generally doesn’t cover long-term care services, and Medicare doesn’t cover most expenses. Not everyone qualifies for Medicaid, and few households have long-term care insurance.
There are several questions households should consider before there’s a need for long-term care.

Kate_sept2004 | E+ | Getty Images

Long-term care can be costly, extending well beyond $100,000. Yet, financial advisors say many households aren’t prepared to manage the expense.
“People don’t plan for it in advance,” said Carolyn McClanahan, a physician and certified financial planner based in Jacksonville, Florida. “It’s a huge problem.”

Over half, 57%, of Americans who turn 65 today will develop a disability serious enough to require long-term care, according to a 2022 report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Urban Institute. Such disabilities might include cognitive or nervous system disorders like dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, or complications from a stroke, for example.
The average future cost of long-term care for someone turning 65 today is about $122,400, the HHS-Urban report said.
But some people need care for many years, pushing lifetime costs well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars — a sum “out of reach for many Americans,” report authors Richard Johnson and Judith Dey wrote.

The number of people who need care is expected to swell as the U.S. population ages amid increasing longevity.
“It’s pretty clear [workers] don’t have that amount of savings in retirement, that amount of savings in their checking or savings accounts, and the majority don’t have long-term care insurance,” said Bridget Bearden, a research and development strategist at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

“So where is the money going to come from?” she added.

Long-term care costs can exceed $100,000

While most people who need long-term care “spend relatively little,” 15% will spend at least $100,000 out of pocket for future care, according to the HHS-Urban report.
Expense can differ greatly from state to state, and depending on the type of service.
Nationally, it costs about $6,300 a month for a home health aide and $9,700 for a private room in a nursing home for the typical person, according to 2023 data from Genworth, an insurer.

More from FA Playbook:

Here’s a look at other stories impacting the financial advisor business.

It seems many households are unaware of the potential costs, either for themselves or their loved ones.
For example, 73% of workers say there’s at least one adult for whom they may need to provide long-term care in the future, according to a new poll by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
However, just 29% of these future caregivers — who may wind up footing at least part of the future bill —had estimated the future cost of care, EBRI found. Of those who did, 37% thought the price tag would fall below $25,000 a year, the group said.
The EBRI survey polled 2,445 employees from ages 20 to 74 years old in late 2024.

Many types of insurance often don’t cover costs

Maskot | Maskot | Getty Images

There’s a good chance much of the funding for long-term care will come out-of-pocket, experts said.
Health insurance generally doesn’t cover long-term care services, and Medicare doesn’t cover most expenses, experts said.
For example, Medicare may partially cover “skilled” care for the first 100 days, said McClanahan, the founder of Life Planning Partners and a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council. This may be when a patient requires a nurse to help with rehab or administer medicine, for example, she said.

Where is the money going to come from?

Bridget Bearden
research and development strategist at the Employee Benefit Research Institute

But Medicare doesn’t cover “custodial” care, when someone needs help with daily activities like bathing, dressing, using the bathroom and eating, McClanahan said. These basic everyday tasks constitute the majority of long-term care needs, according to the HHS-Urban report.
Medicaid is the largest payer of long-term care costs today, Bearden said. Not everyone qualifies, though: Many people who get Medicaid benefits are from lower-income households, EBRI’s Bearden said. To receive benefits for long-term care, households may first have to exhaust a big chunk of their financial assets.
“You basically have to be destitute,” McClanahan said.
Republicans in Washington are weighing cuts to Medicaid as part of a large tax-cut package. If successful, it’d likely be harder for Americans to get Medicaid benefits for long-term care, experts said.

Long-term care insurance considerations

The Good Brigade | Digitalvision | Getty Images

Few households have insurance policies that specifically hedge against long-term care risk: About 7.5 million Americans had some form of long-term care insurance coverage in 2020, according to the Congressional Research Service.
By comparison, more than 4 million baby boomers are expected to retire per year from 2024 to 2027.
Washington state has a public long-term care insurance program for residents, and other states like California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania are exploring their own.

Long-term care insurance policies make most sense for people who have a high risk of needing care for a lengthy duration, McClanahan said. That may include those who have a high risk of dementia or have longevity in their family history, she said.
McClanahan recommends opting for a hybrid insurance policy that combines life insurance and a long-term care benefit; traditional stand-alone policies only meant for long-term care are generally expensive, she said.
Be wary of how the policy pays benefits, too, she said.

For example, “reimbursement” policies require the insured to choose from a list of preferred providers and submit receipts for reimbursement, McClanahan said. For some, especially seniors, that may be difficult without assistance, she said.
With “indemnity” policies, which McClanahan recommends, insurers generally write benefit checks as soon as the insured qualifies for assistance, and they can spend the money how they see fit. However, the benefit amount is often lower than reimbursement policies, she said.

How to be proactive about long-term care planning

“The challenge with long-term care costs is they’re unpredictable,” McClanahan said. “You don’t always know when you’ll get sick and need care.”
The biggest mistake McClanahan sees people make relative to long-term care: They don’t think about long-term care needs and logistics, or discuss them with family members, long before needing care.

For example, that may entail considering the following questions, McClanahan said:

Do I have family members that will help provide care? Would they offer financial assistance? Do I want to self-insure?
What are the financial logistics? For example, who will help pay your bills and make insurance claims?
Do I have good advance healthcare directives in place? For example, as I get sicker will I let family continue to keep me alive (which adds to long-term care expenses), or will I move to comfort care and hospice?
Do I want to age in place? (This is often a cheaper option if you don’t need 24-hour care, McClanahan said.)
If I want to age in place, is my home set up for that? (For example, are there many stairs? Is there a tiny bathroom in which it’s tough to maneuver a walker?) Can I make my home aging-friendly, if it’s not already? Would I be willing to move to a new home or perhaps another state with a lower cost of long-term care?
Do I live in a rural area where it may be harder to access long-term care?

Being proactive can help families save money in the long term, since reactive decisions are often “way more expensive,” McClanahan said.
“When you think through it in advance it keeps the decisions way more level-headed,” she said. More