The latest news on the SportArbs site is that they will soon be issuing Visa/Mastercard debit cards for members who want them. Now that membership is approaching 18,000 it seems that the company are taking further steps to consolidate the services available to members.

As with many other providers the cards will come at a cost, in this case somewhere between $100 and $120. They will be delivered by DHL/Fedex and users will have to pay fees for ATM withdrawals so for the majority of members I’m assuming that this will not be the first thing they look for when making a withdrawal.

I’m all for a company providing alternative ways to withdraw funds and I’m sure many people like the convenience of a debit card but for me the initial cost and ongoing transaction charges make it less of an attractive option.

In terms of performance SportArbs continue to make returns of around 2.05% a day and as this is a seven day a week operation it doesn’t take too long to start building up a reasonable fund assuming you compound at 100% for the lock-in period of 42 days.

Whilst the investment performance seems to be positive they still show on the home page that they will be establishing customer support by phone shortly. This has been there since when I joined back in the autumn of 2009. Now I know that this is a fairly minor thing but it’s just one of those little negatives that any programme wanting to be 100% credible should avoid at all costs.

But aside from this little irritation SportArbs is well worth taking a look at as you can invest and treat it as a passive investment.