Following on from Marta’s post - this time last year, Monzo had 40k users which is probably about the same number as Starling has now.
Which obviously means that they’re a year behind Monzo, in terms of users, unless they can grow faster.
But in a year’s time, if Monzo can gain 10x as many users again, it’ll have ~4m while Starling will have ~400k. Then the following year it’ll have ~40m while Starling will have ~4m & so on..
So you can see why signing up these users early could end up being pretty significant, in the distant future when Monzo are actually competing with Starling for users. And in the meantime, it’s probably at least going to help Monzo get more of the attention from the press, from providers who’ll be offering their services via the marketplace & from developers who’re building apps etc. 