Alternative banking for the superyacht lifecycle

When I speak with captains, brokers or yacht managers, they say the same thing: setting up banking services for superyachts is super hard… and getting harder all the time.

In yachting centres like Monaco, Malta or Cyprus, it can take six months simply to open a bank account and making international payments is painfully slow. Money moves at the pace of the slowest correspondent bank and even obtaining a simple MT103 proof of payment is often difficult… and expensive.

Part of the problem is that banks haven’t moved forward. They’re tied to their legacy systems and legacy processes. In other parts of our lives, expectations of speed and service, transparency and cost have changed dramatically. Too often, banks seem to lag behind.

And even in superyacht hotspots like Monaco or Malta, banks don’t really understand the yachting industry. Big banks have corporate compliance systems designed to work across all industries, without accommodating the nuances of our very mobile world.

In an industry where time, trust and speed are critical, traditional banking feels harder than it should be.  

Centtrip makes thing simple

From the outset, 13 years ago, we’ve focused on the difficulties of managing payments and expenses for the largest yachts. Centtrip combines modern financial technology (fintech) with deep industry understanding and a focus on customer service.

Initially, we solved cards, payments and expenses primarily for charter yachts. Today, we provide alternative banking for the entire superyacht lifecycle, from build or buy, through yacht operations, payroll and charter, to refits and, ultimately, to sale. We call this Premium Asset Lifecycle Management.

Here’s what we do and why we’re different.

Centtrip is a regulated provider with safeguarded accounts

Given our clients and the vessels we work with, security of funds is of the utmost importance. That’s why, from the very beginning, Centtrip chose to be an e-money institution (EMI) authorised and regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

That means that all client funds are held in separate, segregated accounts with Tier 1 financial institutions. In the unlikely event of any problems, your money is safe.

Each year, around $3 billion in transactions flow across the Centtrip platform.

We are experts in the superyacht sector

Centtrip was founded in 2013 and works with some of the biggest names in yacht management. We support over 2,000 vessels and more than half of the world’s largest superyachts.

In the beginning, we saw a requirement for a secure and efficient solution to charter payments and APAs. From there, we grew organically into yacht operations and then into payroll payments.

Today, we provide escrow and SPV accounts to manage large milestone payments for builds, refits, purchase and sale.

We aim to do what we do well. We don’t sell accounting software, ERPs or project management. We provide transaction facilities for the entire superyacht lifecycle and are experts in handling large, cross-jurisdictional transactions for complex organisational structures.

As we explored in our recent report, The Evolution of Superyacht Ownership (download a copy here), decisions on ownership structures are increasingly complicated. We work with partners, advisers and service providers to streamline the onboarding of new accounts and protect payments and transfers from exchange rate risk.

We can usually open a new client account within five days, not five months.

We understand the needs of UHNW audiences

In the yachting industry “perfect is the average” and service providers must always operate at that level.

At Centtrip we support the businesses that support UHNW clients: family offices, yacht management companies, CSPs, partners and advisers. We understand the need for responsiveness, speed, reliability and absolute security. Ultimately, the vessel has to win and Centtrip is a vital part of the service ladder to that vessel.

In another of our reports, we explored The Changing Faces of Wealth (available here) and the consequences of those changes for service providers.

We provide the tools and functionality you need

We provide the tools you need without locking you into an entire ecosystem.

Open APIs and direct integrations

Yacht crew are employed to be crew. They shouldn’t be spending their time downloading Excel spreadsheets, learning new systems and analysing receipts.

When efficiency and security are critical, the answer is often to use the systems that already work well for you. Our open APIs let you connect directly with your favourite tools and systems so you can feed real-time transaction data into your accounting software, or send payroll payments direct from your payroll package.

Overall, our platform is designed to simplify expenses and payments and help crew to be crew … not accountants.

We also offer direct integrations with leading accounting and yacht management solutions like QuickBooks, Xero, DeepBlue, Aquator Marine and more.

Client-defined visibility and control

Every company, every yacht, every captain operates in their own way. You shouldn’t bend your ways of working to fit a new tool.

That’s why the Centtrip platform gives you choice and control over the functions and visibility available to each user at a granular, per-user level.

For example, if using an escrow account for refit payments, you can give visibility of the funds to the shipyard, project manager, captain and yacht management company, while only the escrow agent can approve and initiate payments, subject to the agreed conditions.

Instant, fee-free payments on the Centtrip platform

With Centtrip, you can transfer money instantly between accounts on our platform. A charter management company can transfer APAs from their account to the yacht’s APA account or a broker can transfer a stage payment from buyer to seller: instantly, transparently and fee-free for accounts on Centtrip.

Foreign exchange and forward contracts

In the last 12 months, the USD to GBP exchange rate has swung by 14-15%. If you were building, buying or selling a yacht over that period, it might have cost significantly more than you expected.

Centtrip’s FX experts can help you with forward contracts to hedge the risk of exchange rate volatility over the life of your project, while our multi-currency accounts enable you to hold funds in 15 major currencies.

Your trusted alternative banking solution for the superyacht lifecycle

For more information about Centtrip's alternative banking solutions, please download our free guide here

Meet us at Superyacht Investor London 2026

Will you be at Superyacht Investor London? If so, please come and have a chat.

Jane Turner and Sarah Gooding (our CEO and CPO) are speaking on the afternoon of March 3rd, just before the Centtrip-sponsored Champagne Roundtables.

I’ll be there with colleagues from across the Centtrip team, so please come, say hello, ask any questions and let’s chat about the superyacht lifecycle.