The battle for everyday spending is moving beyond payment methods and into memberships, rewards and lifestyle benefits. Swedish fintech giant Klarna and UK payments company Zilch are both expanding their consumer propositions with paid membership plans, seeking to make their platforms more valuable between purchases while challenging traditional credit cards for customer loyalty.
Klarna Builds a Membership Ecosystem
Klarna has revamped its paid membership offering as it continues its transition from a buy now, pay later provider into a broader everyday payments and banking platform.
The company is positioning the new plans around a combination of cashback, subscriptions, payment benefits and premium cards. Klarna says the changes are designed to bring what it describes as US style credit card benefits to European consumers.
The revamped membership structure includes four packages, starting at €4.99 per month for Klarna Everywhere and rising to €44.99 per month for Klarna Max.
The top tier is designed to compete with premium credit cards by combining financial benefits with a wide selection of lifestyle services.
Premium Perks at the Top Tier
Klarna Max costs €44.99 per month and includes access to 23 subscriptions, alongside a premium rose gold metal card.
Among the services included in Klarna’s broader membership proposition are digital subscriptions and consumer services such as NordVPN and The New York Times.
Klarna is also emphasising cashback across purchases and the flexibility to move between membership levels. Rather than requiring customers to commit to a conventional annual credit card package, the company says members can change their plan from month to month.
The strategy reflects Klarna’s wider ambition to become an everyday financial platform rather than a service primarily associated with instalment payments.
Klarna has previously expanded its membership offering in the US, where its Premium and Max plans combine cashback, travel benefits, subscriptions and metal cards. Its US Max plan is priced at $44.99 per month and includes 2 per cent cashback when customers use their Klarna balance.
Zilch Enters Paid Memberships
Zilch is taking a similar approach in the UK, launching paid memberships for the first time as it seeks to increase rewards and engagement among its customer base.
The fintech has introduced Zilch Extra at £2.99 per month and Zilch Plus at £3.99 per month.
Zilch Extra includes Open Banking based income verification, personalised offers and spending insights, along with priority customer support. The plan is being rolled out gradually and may not yet be available to every customer. (Zilch Help Center)
Zilch Plus provides higher rewards, a free physical card and additional member benefits. Customers can earn up to 6 per cent in rewards when paying now and up to 1 per cent when paying over time, depending on the transaction and eligibility. (Zilch | Join over 6 million customers)
Rewards Become the Battleground
The membership push highlights how fintech companies are increasingly competing on more than payment functionality.
Zilch already offers a free Standard plan, while Plus introduces additional rewards and perks for customers willing to pay a monthly fee. Plus also includes a Tastecard membership, providing dining and coffee discounts to eligible members. (Zilch Help Center)
The model creates a potential flywheel: more spending can generate more rewards, while additional benefits give customers an incentive to keep using the same financial platform.
Challenging Traditional Credit Cards
Both companies are effectively trying to recreate the loyalty economics of premium credit cards without relying solely on traditional annual fees and points systems.
For Klarna, the strategy forms part of a much broader push into everyday banking and payments. For Zilch, membership strengthens its proposition around flexible payments, rewards and spending tools.
Zilch CEO and co founder Philip Belamant said the new tiers represent an evolution of the company’s original mission to reduce the cost of consumer credit, with the platform increasingly focused on making purchases intelligently financed, optimised and rewarded.
As fintechs add subscriptions, cashback, premium cards and lifestyle services to their payment products, the competition is shifting from who processes a transaction to who can become the financial platform consumers choose to use every day.
