Swedish Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Klarna is likely to choose the US for a stock market listing over London, according to an interview with chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski in the Sunday Times.

The FinTech recently hit a valuation of $40 billion, on the news it is close to securing a new round of funding from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

The statement comes amid efforts by the UK government, confirmed in April, to make London initial public offerings (IPOs) more attractive to FinTechs.

These government proposals, based on recommendations drawn up by ex-EU commissioner Lord Hill, would see the introduction of dual class share structures like those available in Silicon Valley, which allow founders to retain more voting rights while raising capital.

Klarna doubled its gross merchandise volume (GMV) – the overall value of all the transactions on its platform - to $18.9 billion between January and March.

The revenues were mainly buoyed by strong growth in the US market, where it doubled its user base year-on-year to 17 million and increased its app downloads by 125 per cent.

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