Klarna asking for full bank access to “verify identity” AFTER I’d already uploaded my passport - this feels excessive
Has anyone else had this recently?
I was going through Klarna’s Spending Power process and, just a few steps earlier, had already been asked to verify my identity using my passport. Fine.
Then Klarna tells me I need to connect my online banking to “verify my identity”.
That already felt excessive. If you’ve literally just verified me using a government-issued passport, why do you now need access to my banking as well?
I bank with Lloyds, so rather than connecting my main current account, I connected one of my Lloyds savings accounts. It’s a genuine account in my name and I authenticated it directly through Lloyds.
Klarna then came back saying the account was “not suitable.”
And that’s the bit I really don’t like.
If the purpose is genuinely just identity verification, why isn’t a successfully authenticated Lloyds account in my name suitable? What exactly are they looking for that requires my main current account?
It makes me wonder whether the bank connection is actually being used for something more than the wording suggests — e.g. looking at balances, income, transactions or affordability — which is a very different proposition from simply saying “we need this to verify your identity.”
I’m not claiming Klarna isn’t entitled to carry out affordability/fraud checks. If they need a current account for a creditworthiness assessment, just say that clearly.
But:
Passport → verified
Bank connection → “to verify identity”
Savings account in my name → “not suitable”
Presumably now wants my main current account
…feels unnecessarily intrusive and, at minimum, poorly explained.
I’m certainly not going to give a BNPL provider access to my main banking history just because a screen vaguely tells me it’s needed to prove who I am.
Has anyone else in the UK had this new Klarna process? And has anyone found out what they actually mean by an account being “not suitable”?