The superpower behind successful super yachts

Life as a guest on a super yacht is seamless, with every luxury on call as the vessel moves between stunning locations and vibrant port towns.

But while it is silky smooth on the surface, providing first-class service at sea requires a frenetic level of work behind the scenes, especially around budgets.

The annual yacht charter market was valued at $16.5 billion in 2024, with a third of this money spent before clients even stepped aboard, covering the advanced provisioning allowance (APA) for essential expenses including food, fuel and port fees.

With luxury yacht charters often traversing several countries in a single week, this spending across multiple currencies and tax jurisdictions is notoriously difficult to approve, track and reimburse.

To tackle this challenge, Ankor Software partnered with global financial technology provider Airwallex to develop AnkorPay.

Having launched in 2020, Ankor Software was already supporting yacht charter professionals by managing yacht listings, website integration, trip creation and contract generation.

Despite super yacht charters being the pinnacle of luxurious travel experiences, behind-the-scenes financial processes have traditionally been slow and fragmented.

Many vessels still rely on manual reconciliation, spreadsheets, phone calls and other outdated tools to manage the large sums required before a trip begins, says Ankor Software founder and co-CEO Elliot Cousins.

“Handling all that manually is quite a challenge,” Cousins says. “Especially in a sensitive industry which requires a high degree of due diligence, such as robust ‘Know Your Customer’ and ‘Know Your Business’ processes.

“Plus, there are stringent VAT [value-added tax] compliance requirements which require real-time tracking, because at the end of every trip the captain or manager has to submit a compliance report to the local VAT authority with all the receipts.”

Much as plotting the optimal route is important, so is applying an accurate matrix for local VAT obligations, especially in Europe.

It is a common scenario where goods and services are ordered in one country, produced and shipped from a second country, and delivered in a third, says Alan FitzGerald, founder of IT consultancy Practice Connections Advisory.

The process is known as “triangulation” and is very challenging to achieve using spreadsheets, FitzGerald says.

“This ability to have records accurately showing the tax, along with the provenance of the goods/services, is increasingly important when it comes to managing cross-jurisdiction finances,” he says.

“Outside of Europe’s common currency, the ease of being able to trace exchange rates and any associated payments will significantly benefit managing the day-to-day of running either a single but more importantly, multiple vessels.”

AnkorPay aims to revolutionise financial management in the yachting industry by connecting vessel owners, captains and managers via one secure platform – making it easy to issue digital cards, approve expenses, track charter budgets in real time and automate compliance reports for VAT authorities.

Building AnkorPay with Airwallex has enabled Ankor to onboard super yachts from around the world much more quickly, thanks to the latter’s global reach and support for complex entity structures.

Along with simplifying the process of tracking real-time expenses across multiple currencies while minimising conversion fees, Airwallex also modernises and streamlines financial processes and workflows in a single platform.

“Thanks to Airwallex, AnkorPay replaces a maze of spreadsheets, emails and last-minute approvals that have long slowed down the yacht charter industry,” Cousins says.

“It’s not just about making it easier to spend money anywhere from the Arctic circle to the Caribbean, it’s about Airwallex’s financial infrastructure and expense management – that’s the glue that holds AnkorPay together.”

By bringing payments, cards, approvals and reporting together in one place, AnkorPay gives charter teams a far clearer view of budgets as a trip unfolds, with real-time visibility on spend and balances to help avoid surprises.

Along with reducing admin pressure, Cousins says AnkorPay also makes high-value charter spending more transparent, reliable and secure for everyone involved.

“AnkorPay’s integration with Airwallex has been key in letting us integrate tightly with our existing systems and streamline complex compliance checks,” he says.

“Previously, setting up payment and virtual card solutions for super yachts could take weeks; now it’s down to days or even hours with AnkorPay and Airwallex, and that speed and reliability is a big win for everyone involved.”