Oxfordshire-based gloveglu, founded by entrepreneur Paul Sherratt, has grown into a widely recognised name in goalkeeper products in the lead-up to the World Cup.

The company now generates nearly £3 million in annual revenue, with its products reaching football players, coaches, and communities in dozens of countries.

Mr Sherratt said: “Goalkeeping has changed massively over the last decade.

“Younger goalkeepers are training like professionals earlier than ever before, and social media has created a huge global community around the position.

“Modern goalkeepers are obsessed with preparation, confidence and marginal gains.

“What we’ve seen is the growth of an entire culture around the position.”

The brand began as a niche product designed to improve grip and confidence for goalkeepers.

Since then, it has expanded into specialist products now sold worldwide under Mr Sherratt’s leadership.

Despite its international success, gloveglu remains independently owned and operates out of Bampton.

The company continues to develop specialist products for goalkeepers from its Oxfordshire base.

It sells one product every two and a half minutes worldwide.

Mr Sherratt credits the company’s expansion to broader changes in goalkeeping.

He said: “What began as a solution for goalkeepers has grown into a global brand.”

He believes the evolution of goalkeeping is one of football’s most significant but least discussed shifts.

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology has launched a national Coalition on Financial Inclusion, starting with the development of a supported payments framework for people who need help managing their money.

Backed by HM Treasury, the initiative brings together banks, fintechs, regulators, charities, consumer groups and people with lived experience. Its first focus is a model that would let individuals make everyday payments while a trusted third party provides oversight and support.

The work is aimed initially at adults with a learning disability, though CFIT believes the model could also be relevant to people with dementia, fluctuating mental health conditions, acquired brain injuries and some neurodivergent people. Many who need help with day-to-day spending currently face a choice between formal legal arrangements and informal methods such as sharing cards, PINs or passwords.

This gap has become a growing concern for financial firms and charities because informal arrangements can expose customers to fraud, financial abuse and loss of control. It also creates liability and visibility issues for institutions with little formal insight into how support is being provided.

Building on Nemo

The coalition builds on work by Project Nemo, a disability inclusion initiative in financial services. Over the past two years, Project Nemo has worked with the learning disability community, charities, regulators and financial institutions to explore how people can retain independence while receiving practical support with payments.

CFIT said 11 million UK adults, or about 19.3% of the adult population, already help someone with digital banking. That suggests a broad market need that extends well beyond the coalition’s initial target group.

CFIT has previously convened coalitions on Open Finance, Digital Company ID, SME Access to Finance and Open Property. This latest programme is its fifth national coalition and reflects a wider policy push around financial inclusion.

A core part of the work will be designing a trust and consent framework that allows a customer to appoint a trusted third party to support payments without removing autonomy or requiring a full Lasting Power of Attorney or similar formal arrangement.

The second workstream will focus on a proof of concept and pilot. The coalition plans to test supported payment journeys in real-world settings and may use Open Banking infrastructure to do so.

Policy backing

The Treasury has linked the work to the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, signalling official interest in moving the issue from research and advocacy into implementation.

“Nobody should be locked out of the chance to build a better future, which is why CFIT’s work is vital in helping to support people manage their money. The Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy recognised the important contribution Project Nemo has made in highlighting how inclusive design can support greater financial independence, so that people can participate fully in the economy and manage their finances safely and confidently,” Rachel Blake, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said.

Anna Wallace, Chief Executive Officer of CFIT, said the current system leaves too many consumers without a safe option for everyday support.

 “This Coalition is about tackling a systemic gap in the financial system: today, too many people who need support managing money are forced to rely on unsafe and unscalable workarounds. By bringing together industry, regulators, government and lived experience, we have an opportunity to build practical supported payment solutions that can be implemented safely and consistently across the market. Focusing innovation on underserved consumers will ultimately help create a more inclusive, resilient and trusted financial system for everyone,” said Wallace.

Project Nemo’s founders have argued that the issue has been visible for some time but has lacked an industry-wide structure for delivery. The coalition model is intended to provide that structure by bringing multiple parts of the financial system into a single programme.

“Project Nemo began two years ago with a belief that disability inclusion and accessibility needed to move from the margins to the mainstream of financial services innovation. Since then, through our groundbreaking films, our research report with Nationwide and our codesigned app by CI&T showing what the learning disability community were looking for, we have seen the industry come together in ways we could not have imagined. By combining Project Nemo’s community-led work with CFIT’s coalition delivery model and HM Treasury support, we now have an opportunity to unlock the sticking points to providing better solutions that can make a meaningful difference to people’s everyday lives and ensure that the future of financial services works for everyone,” said Joanne Dewar, Co-Founder of Project Nemo.

For consumers and firms alike, the central question is whether the coalition can produce a regulated model that preserves independence without relying on unsafe informal practices. CFIT said the pilot will gather feedback from consumers, carers and supporters, assess operational feasibility for financial institutions, and identify barriers to wider adoption.

Laurel and Dayshape have partnered to address revenue leakage in professional services firms by linking resource planning data with automated work tracking.

The partnership combines Dayshape’s resource planning platform with Laurel’s work intelligence software to give firms a clearer view of how work is scheduled, carried out and billed. The aim is to reduce reliance on incomplete timesheet data and disconnected planning systems.

Profit pressure

Professional services firms are under growing pressure to improve profitability as leaders try to protect margins and raise productivity. Research cited by Dayshape found that 42% of firms missed revenue targets over the past year, while 38% lacked clear visibility into team capacity and availability, and 37% lacked real-time insight into profitability by team or project.

The joint offering is designed to help firms identify operational blind spots, improve utilisation, strengthen forecasting and recover billable time that might otherwise go unrecorded. Laurel’s software captures work activity across meetings, emails, documents and digital workflows, while Dayshape uses scheduling and project financial data to support staffing and planning decisions.

Time capture

The issue is significant for firms that still rely on manual time entry to measure work and support billing. In sectors such as accounting, consulting and legal services, gaps in time recording can affect revenue recognition, project profitability and the ability to assess whether teams are being deployed effectively.

Dayshape said customers using its platform typically see a 5% increase in utilisation. Laurel said its users capture an average of 28 additional minutes a day. Both companies said their customers report profit increases of 11%.

The partnership also gives each company access to a broader set of data. Scheduling information from Dayshape can provide context for Laurel’s system when matching recorded time to the right matters and engagements, while Laurel’s time records can improve the accuracy of Dayshape’s plan-versus-actual reporting.

Partner networks

Both companies sell to large professional services organisations. They are also part of the Microsoft and Workday partner networks, which could simplify deployment for joint customers.

Matt Cockett, Chief Executive Officer of Dayshape, said the partnership combines forward-looking planning with more accurate time capture.

“What Dayshape does so well is provide a forward-looking view of a business enabling companies to plan optimally and course correct as they go. Laurel ensures every minute of work is captured accurately, without adding any extra effort for teams. We know that time data in professional services has historically been difficult to manage. Laurel’s technology means that it doesn’t need to be, which is exactly why this partnership makes sense,” said Matt Cockett, Chief Executive Officer of Dayshape.

Ryan Alshak, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Laurel, said firms often underestimate the scale of missing or poor-quality operational data.

Planning layer

“Most firms know they have a data problem. They just don’t know how bad it is until they fix it. Laurel gives firms an accurate picture of how time is actually being spent and what it’s producing. Connecting it with Dayshape’s scheduling and revenue engine means customers finally have the planning layer and the execution layer talking to each other,” said Ryan Alshak, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Laurel.

The partnership is positioned as a response to a persistent industry problem: firms may plan work in one system, log time in another and review profitability only after a project has gone off course. By linking planning data with recorded work activity, firms should be able to compare expected and actual delivery more closely and identify where margin is being lost.

That matters at a time when only 25% of leaders surveyed by Dayshape said they were confident in their organisation’s ability to plan for the long term. For firms whose revenues depend on billable hours and efficient staffing, visibility into capacity, utilisation and project economics remains a basic commercial concern.