Why we're playing the longer game

By Andrew Smith, Founder and CEO

"Couldn't you just do this faster?"

It's a fair question, and we hear it often. There is a quicker route to market for a financial services brand like ours. It is lighter to licence, needs far less capital and gets a product in front of people sooner. It is called an electronic money institution (an EMI), and plenty of well-run companies operate that way.

We have chosen not to. This is why.

Time is only long when you measure it against the wrong thing

Becoming a bank takes years. We don't dispute that, and we won't pretend otherwise. But "too long" is not a measurement. It is a comparison, and the question that matters is: too long compared to what?

Here is what we measure against. Half of grassroots sports clubs don’t break even, and must dip into their reserves just to pay their bills. Yet community sport and physical activity creates more than £100bn of social value in England every year. Measured against that, a few years of doing it properly is short.

The problem is how sport is priced

Sport does not have an app problem. It has a pricing problem.

Banks price risk in a way that was never designed for how sport actually works: the volunteer treasurer, the seasonal income, the thin margins, the club that is the beating heart of its community yet looks fragile on a spreadsheet. So the lending, payments and products that clubs genuinely need are too often priced out of reach, or not designed for clubs at all.

Fixing that means assessing risk with better data on how clubs really run, and building products around them. That cannot be done by putting a new brand on top of someone else’s bank. An EMI can hold and move money, but it can’t lend out the money its customers hold with it. Partnering with another bank means relying on its balance sheet and its view of risk for everything that matters most to a club, and passing its costs on to clubs. We would be a good-looking front door to a house we don’t control.

That is not good enough for a club trying to build a new changing room. We are not building SPORTA to be a logo.

What a licence makes possible

A banking licence is not a badge. It is the permission to do the work that makes a difference, and it comes with the supervision that makes it safe.

For clubs. Finance that understands the shape of sport: payments, day-to-day money management and lending designed around how clubs really run. Less time spent on admin and fewer volunteers lost to paperwork.

For the sector. A financial partner that will be accountable, regulated and in it for the long term. Capital that will be held to protect customers first, and that will work to make sure clubs have a future.

For individuals. Players, parents, coaches and supporters who can trust that the organisation looking after their club's money will be held to the highest standard.

For the next generation. Safe, well-run, properly funded places to play. A pitch with working floodlights. A changing room that is clean and secure. A club that is still open next season. These are the things that depend on a club's finances being in good order, and every one of them is lost when a club closes its doors.

Why we are doing it the right way

We want to be supervised. A banking licence is a privilege, and it comes with high expectations. We welcome them.

That is also why we run the work in parallel and not in a queue. Licensing, capital, product, club partnerships and data move together, so that the time it takes is the time the job genuinely needs and not a day longer. Three years of work does not have to mean three years of waiting, because a good plan lets the pieces run side by side.

The longer game is the better game

A shortcut would get us to market sooner. But it would limit what we could do for a club, and it would limit the trust we could earn from the people who rely on one.

So we are taking the longer road, travelled properly. Not because it is easy, but because the mission is too important to build on borrowed foundations.

Without passion you miss the mission, and if we miss the mission then we miss the opportunity.

Together, we can fix this.

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SPORTA is applying for authorisation to become the UK’s first bank built specifically for sport. It is not currently authorised, and does not accept deposits or provide lending or any other banking products or services. This article sets out our plans and ambitions; it is not an offer of, or invitation to apply for, any financial product. Our plans may change and are subject to regulatory approval.