Challenge

When Spond launched in 2014 to digitize sports team management in Norway, the founders knew that payments would be a key part of the platform. Team managers, coaches, and volunteers were spending hours reconciling cash, checks, and spreadsheets to collect membership fees, pay out referees, and charge for events—time that could be better spent on practices, games, and other sports activities.

Spond needed a payment technology partner that could support its ambitious vision to become a global leader in sports technology. That meant it needed financial infrastructure capable of processing payments for thousands of clubs and millions of individual players, coaches, and parents across multiple countries. The platform would also need to accommodate different regulatory environments, compliance demands, and local payment preferences as the company expanded internationally.

“We have always built the company to have a very global orientation,” said Nicolas Wong, product manager of the monetization team at Spond.

Spond also knew that global expansion and rising payment volumes would expose the platform to increasing fraud risk, which called for a solution that included advanced detection and prevention tools to safeguard both the system and its users.

Solution

Spond chose Stripe as its partner, citing Stripe’s leadership position in platform management software and its superior developer experience.

Spond used Stripe Connect to build an embedded payments foundation that would support the varying structures and fund flows across different types of sports clubs and teams. For instance, Spond needed to support everything from straightforward player-to-team fees to more complex scenarios—such as payments from a player to a parent club that must then be distributed to a local team. Connect’s flexible routing capabilities meant that Spond could split those payments among multiple parties while automatically collecting its own platform fees.

Connect’s support for both individuals and registered businesses was also essential, since many coaches managed separate bank accounts for their teams. This functionality ensured that Spond could support payments from clubs to coaches and from teams to referees for game duties.

To minimize onboarding friction, Spond built a custom registration flow that asked only for key details—like name, email, and bank account number—instead of collecting all compliance information up front.

“The beauty of Connect is that it enables users to start collecting fees right away. We can backfill the required Know Your Customer information later, before any payouts are processed,” said Wong.

Connect also simplified Spond’s expansion, providing international financial licensing and multicurrency support. This allowed Spond to enter markets beyond Norway without needing to build new payment solutions for each country.

Throughout its international expansion, Spond found Stripe’s documentation especially valuable for onboarding, since requirements vary by country. Clear technical guidance set the stage for navigating compliance across multiple markets without getting mired in regulatory complexity.

With Stripe Payments Intelligence Suite, Spond’s platform could process transactions related to a range of club activities, including regular fees from players and charges for travel expenses, uniform purchases, and more. Spond gave its customers the option to collect payments through credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe. Having all payments processed through the Spond platform gave club managers complete financial visibility through a single dashboard.

To protect its growing platform from fraud, Spond adopted Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams, a fraud tool that helps teams get detailed insights on suspicious charges and write custom rules to target specific fraud vectors. Radar for Fraud Teams has become an integral part of Spond’s fraud prevention efforts, providing a more granular level of risk control specific to their business and greater insight into different risk vectors.

Results

Spond acquires 4 million users across 19 countries

Since launching with Stripe, Spond has been able to pursue ambitious expansion beyond its Norwegian home market. Spond’s platform now serves 4 million monthly active users across 19 countries through Connect, including 20% of Norway’s population, 1.5 million users in the UK, and 500,000 users in Germany.

“We don’t need to worry about adapting the product to local compliance and regulations. It is handled out of the box. That really reduces the effort that we need to enter a new market and enable payment as both product functionality and also as a channel for monetization,” said Wong.

Payment volume grows 40% annually for the past 3 years

Spond has maintained 40% year-over-year payment growth over the past 3 years, processing more than €160 million in the last 12 months through Stripe. The company anticipates processing €200 million in 2025 and €270 million in 2026, with Wong noting these are “conservative estimates” as payment adoption typically accelerates in new markets.

Spond modernizes payment collection and reduces late payments for 50,000 clubs

Spond supports more than 50,000 sports clubs and teams, from local Norwegian clubs to international teams and individual coaches. By replacing manual reconciliation and traditional payment methods like checks, cash, and invoices with a single overview of incoming payments, clubs experienced fewer overdue and unpaid payments from members. This means users can focus on organizing activities rather than administrative tasks.

“This has modernized how the clubs collect money,” said Wong.

Spond accelerates checkout with Link

In a single week, Spond processed $26,000 through Link, with 84% of those transactions coming from returning Link consumers. The high rate of returning users points to Link’s quick adoption and the smoother experience it’s created for recurring club and team payments.

Spond and Stripe create opportunities to build more financial services for sports clubs

Looking ahead, Spond plans to expand its use of Stripe’s platform to further serve the grassroots sports community. The company is planning to test Stripe Capital in the UK to provide working capital solutions for sports clubs, many of whom face cash flow challenges between membership collection periods.

Spond also sees significant potential in capturing in-person transactions through Terminal, which would replace manual workflows that currently rely on expensive card terminal providers of cash-heavy processes. Additionally, the team is exploring Stripe Issuing for potential prepaid cards for teams, and looking at enhanced Treasury solutions for financial accounts as transaction volumes continue to grow.