I don’t think charging everyone here is the answer.
There is a nice middle ground where someone is using Monzo’s standard features for free and making us a small amount of money through it being their main bank account. This is very roughly where the vast majority of people using Monzo sit.
At the top end, there are people who are really into their banking and can afford to spend £5/month or even more for a premium experience or extra features. It’s a much smaller group of people but it’s also a lot more money, and this iteration of Plus has been doing very well so far.
There is another group, and that is people whose account usage loses Monzo a significant amount of money. These are people who are generally abusing things such when we did not charge for international delivery of cards, or who are ordering new cards every day/week (yes, people really do try this). This just is not sustainable and we have to learn where and how to draw the line here.
I think it’s fair that Monzo let that large middle group use the service for free and make small amounts of money from a lot of users (especially as many of Monzo’s long standing free features work better with more friends using it!), while looking at fair fees for areas where money is lost through abuse, and provide optional extras for those willing to pay.
I also think that one of the greatest things about the UK is that anyone can open a basic or standard current account at just about every bank for free. This just about universal access to banking is what has allowed the UK to be so advanced in areas such as Bacs payments, Direct Debits, Faster Payments, and contactless card/mobile payments. I would not for one second want to endanger this very special thing we have going in this country. 