New payment service Avarda to compete with Klarna

Online retailers and consumers in the Nordics now can use another service for invoice payments. After the huge success of Klarna, it’s time for Avarda, a joint venture from Intrum Justitia and TF Bank. It aims to become the leading provider of payment solutions for online purchases in the Nordic countries.

With Avarda’s service offering, online merchants are able to receive payments instantly while offering consumers the opportunity to pay through invoice, installments or revolving accounts. The service can be used white-label, so “online merchants can communicate directly with their customers and thereby strengthen their trademark and competitiveness”, the press release reads.

Avarda will challenge Klarna
“We offer an alternative that provides online retailers an opportunity to build a stronger brand”, Andreas Jonsson, vice president of Avarda, told the Swedish website Di.se. According to Dagens Industri Avarda will “challenge the well-established IT company Klarna in the area of payments for online purchases”.

Avarda is owned jointly with TF Bank, which Intrum Justitia has co-operated with during several years, providing credit management services and purchase of overdue receivables. TF Bank is part of Consortio Fashion Group AB that also inclused Halens and Cellbes. For these two online fashion retailers, TF Bank manages large volumes of credit and payment transactions in the Nordics markets. So you could say the two joint venture partners have some experience in the world of online payments. It should be no surprise Avarda will use TF Bank’s existing IT platform.

Ecommerce as a attractive segment
“The launch of Avarda is an important step in the realization of Intrum Justitia’s strategy to grow in the market of non-defaulted debt, with ecommerce as a particularly attractive segment. We are very pleased to be able to launch Avarda together with our long standing partner TF Bank, which brings valuable experience and a proven platform for ecommerce payments” says Lars Wollung, CEO of Intrum Justitia.