Klarna has introduced KlarnaUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin designed to cut cross-border payment costs and speed up settlements. The initiative relies on Tempo and Stripe infrastructure and is currently in testing, with a mainnet launch planned for 2026.
KlarnaUSD is a dollar-reserved token whose operational purpose is to offer faster and cheaper value transfers compared to traditional banking channels.
The project is in a testing phase and, according to the announced roadmap, its mainnet deployment is scheduled for 2026. The technical issuance rests on Tempo, a payments-oriented chain developed in collaboration with Stripe and Paradigm, and it uses Stripe’s Open Issuance by Bridge layer as part of its infrastructure.
The company states that the design seeks to reduce operational friction for merchants and companies that handle cross-border settlements. Klarna arrives with significant scale: it serves 114 million customers and reports an annual GMV of $112 billion, figures the firm considers levers for mass adoption in treasury and commercial payment processes.
Impact on payments, market and risks
Klarna presents its stablecoin amid pressure on the payments value chain, as the financial system continues to bear significant costs in cross-border transfers, estimated at approximately $120 billion per year. The company argues that a dollarized digital currency can reduce those costs, accelerate payments to merchants, and improve cash management efficiency for corporate treasuries.
At the macro level, the entry of a commerce and payments player with Klarna’s scale intensifies competition in stablecoins and poses an operational challenge to traditional interbank messaging mechanisms. A study cited by the company projects that the annual transaction volume in stablecoins could reach $27 trillion by 2030, underscoring the opportunity to reconfigure cross-border flows.
For traders and treasury departments, the practical implications are twofold: a potential reduction of costs and settlement latencies compared to legacy systems, and, simultaneously, exposure to regulatory risks and reserve custody risks. Regulators in the U.S. and Europe continue to debate specific frameworks —mentioned as the GENIUS Act, the STABLE Act and MiCA— which introduces regulatory uncertainty over issuance and large-scale use.
The initiative amounts to a bet on displacing friction in global payments through a dollar-reserved stablecoin supported by the Stripe/Tempo infrastructure and Klarna’s commercial scale.
