Martracon recently invited the MarTrust team to join their general welfare vessel visit to discuss the e-wallet and card and have a direct Q&A session with the seafarers on board.
Thank you to Philipp Boerger, MD Martracon, and Fabian Krause for inviting us aboard their crew managed ships, MV Samskip Innovator and MV Samskip Hoffell, at Rotterdam.
Martracon is a longstanding customer of MarTrust; they loved the idea of moving toward a cashless vessel and rolling out the e-wallet to their seafarers.
During the visit, the MarTrust team explained the app’s features and benefits to the crew and why Martracon chose MarTrust.
Following the initial group discussion, Andrea, Jonas, and David (from the MarTrust team) divided into smaller groups of 5 seafarers to showcase the app, discuss all features, and answer questions.
A big question that the crew asked was: why is the company making this change?
We explained to seafarers that maritime is changing across the industry; more and more vessels are going cashless and digital.
In addition to the pandemic, many companies won’t offer cash on the vessels, making it an unsafe and inefficient payment method. If seafarers are paid in cash, they must deposit it at a bank, send it through an exchange house, or spend it.
So the digital solution (e-wallet) solution is better for them (and cheaper!) and better for Martracon.
The seafarers seemed very excited to see real-time FX rates and other functionalities the MarTrust app gives.
Several seafarers commented that they were keen to start and wanted to know when they were getting their MarTrust card.
We want to thank the Martracon team and seafarers for their hospitality. Bon voyage!
Vessel names
• MV Samskip Innovator
• MV Samskip Hoffell
Port: Rotterdam
Date of visit: 26 October 2021
Extensive COVID procedures and precautions were followed during this visit. The MarTrust team are all second or third shot vaccinated, and they carried out COVID tests before the visit. They followed all COVID-related instructions from the crew.
Written by:
David Lord, General Manager
Avita Garhwal Choudhary, Group Marketing Manager
David Hardy, Group Marketing Director
