CHALLENGE

Marex needed a centralised platform for its global trading desks to distribute market insights and monetise premium research content. Previously, market commentary was distributed through fragmented channels like email and PDFs, making it difficult for clients to access valuable information and for Marex to track engagement or monetise premium content.

SOLUTION

The solution I proposed was to create a channel-centric marketplace, implementing a custom CMS and with the integration of Stripe for direct payments.

The platform evolved through three major iterations:

1. First MVP (2019-2020): Established a foundation with public content available for registered users, featuring articles categorised by topics, tags, and trading desks. This created a unified publishing system for trading desks across multiple asset classes.

2. Marketplace Structure (2020-2021): Pivoted towards a marketplace model with the introduction of premium content distributed via channels. During this phase, sales could only be invoiced to existing Marex clients, establishing the foundation for content monetisation.

3. Self-Service Commerce (2021-2023): Integrated automated billing and Stripe payment API enabling self-service purchases of premium subscriptions, opening access to a broader audience beyond existing clients.

Throughout these iterations, the platform was enhanced with:

• A tiered content model with both free and premium subscription options

• An intuitive reading experience optimised for financial content consumption

• Seamless integration with the broader Neon ecosystem, particularly the Neon Dashboard

• An AI chatbot (Neon Intelligence) to summarise research and increase premium content engagement

The platform was designed to be both user-friendly for clients and efficient for internal content creators, with a dedicated admin panel for the Neon Concierge team to manage subscriptions, invoicing, free trials, and content publishing workflows.