I’m expecting that most / all providers for each service will offer their products through the marketplace. The fee can be fixed for all providers i.e. the App store model of generally taking a 30% cut of revenue for all apps.
That removes the incentive to promote one provider’s services over another’s.
Tom also mentioned at the July open office event that Monzo will be transparent about the fee that they’re taking - they’ll show it to the user.
Off the top of my head, the incentives for providers to pay Monzo a referral fee, even if they don’t receive preferential treatment, include:
- Access to users
- Promotion of their services
- Better checkout conversion rates
- Potentially better loyalty, due to an enhanced user experience, thanks to data from the provider feeding into the Monzo app & back, in some instances
If Monzo has a large enough userbase then the loss of sales that would result from not being in the marketplace should outweigh reduced profit, due to the referral fees. More sales with less profit can still earn the company more money than less sales with more profit.