Klarna AB, a Sweden-based provider of payment services foronline stores, plans to start offering payment-processing services to physicalstores across Sweden, and later in other countries, The Wall Street Journal reported May 4.

Klarna pays merchants immediately, and onlylater collects money from customers.

Klarna applied for a banking license from the SwedishFinancial Supervisory Authority late in 2015. The company aims to take banks outof the transaction loop in the long term by offering bank accounts and paymentcards itself, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna's co-founder and CEO, told the Journal.