A case study by Praxent⌘
Embedded business banking launched
in 5 months
Youth sports leagues are a $37.5B industry in the US. They are heavily underserved in financial services.
Players Health and Thread Bank partnered to launch a custom digital experience offering specialized SMB banking + lending + insurance.
UX design
Full-stack development for:
- SMB account opening
- Digital banking
- Corporate card management + sub-ledger
- BNPL purchases
- BaaS, card issuing + data provider integrations
- QA, DevOps, and compliance support
- <6 month launch
- 50+ SMBS onboarded in beta
- $600K ARR onboarded in week 1
- $30M Series B funding secured
The challenges
Fraud
Limited governance over funds often results in misuse that can be hard to track.
Upfront Expenses
Teams must pay for equipment and facilities often before player dues are paid.
Fluctuating balances
Seasonal cash flow often limits their ability to access capital.
Accounting
Tax, accounting, and board reporting is time-consuming and complex.
Multiple users
There are multiple teams per organization, each with coaches + admins requiring access to funds.
Vision: Players Health Finance
Pre-season advances and lending
To start the season with all of the equipment needed.
Mobile banking and debit cards
To easily issue virtual and physical cards to teams and coaches.
Accounting, tax reporting, and compliance
To compare accountants and find the best fit for reporting needs.
Complete financial oversight and governance
To guide the organization in financial opportunities
Store deposits securely from anywhere
To easily issue virtual and physical cards to teams and coaches.
Distribute funds across sub-accounts
To easily issue virtual and physical cards to teams and coaches.
Governance and oversight for reporting and compliance
Provide the board of directors with the proper governance and oversight for reporting and compliance
Transaction notifications
Stay up-to-date with the org’s cash flow with transaction notifications
A partner from end to end
Technical Design Workshops
Existing MVP prototype architecture, non-functional goals, and potential architecture patterns.
Vendor Selection + Technical Design
Key technology selections and cloud deployment approach.
UX Design
User flow diagrams and wireframes representing a landing page concept and design review for the PH 3.0 platform.
V1 Feature Prioritization and MVP Agile Dev
Comprehensive feature list for first product release.
Launch
In less than 6 months, enabling the onboarding of 50 SMBs at launch.
Strategic Value Engineering:
To meet our client’s goal of launching before the upcoming sports season, we faced a tight 5-month deadline.
We used lean methodology to focus on essential early-stage features, achieving an MVP within the timeline. The product is designed for iterative evolution, based on real user feedback.
14+ years of experience in financial services.
Payments specialist.
Strategic and large-scale finance initiatives lead at PayFlex
Strategic Value Engineering:
When we kicked off our engagement, Players Health had a handful of designs from an agency that they’d worked with previously.
Unfortunately, these designs didn’t fully match the vision that the client had, so we focused on prioritizing specific features and re-designed the product to align with their goal.
9+ years of experience in human-centered UX / UI design.
BNPL specialist.
CitiBank’s BNPL experience Home Depot’s commercial credit card application
<6
Month launch
$30M
Series B funding
50+
SMBs onboarded in beta
5
Fintech provider integrations
Compliance-approved accounts ledger on Thread Bank’s core
What Players Health had to say
Tyrre Burks
CEO Players Health