Vessel monitoring in TradeSpeed: Maritime intelligence, designed for trade finance operations
- Aisling Mullins
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
Over the past year, we've spoken with dozens of document examiners, compliance leads, and heads of transaction banking, learning all we could about how they handle vessel monitoring within their trade finance operations.
One theme came up repeatedly: existing tools surface a wealth of data, so much so that it becomes “overwhelming”. Plenty of information, but difficult to navigate and act on.
What we've learned is that the real challenge with vessel tracking in trade finance is not accessing data, but extracting what's actually relevant to a decision, in the least amount of time possible.
Working closely with banks every step of the way, we built TradeSpeed's vessel monitoring module with exactly that premise in mind.
Maritime intelligence, designed for trade finance operations
TradeSpeed's vessel monitoring is built around the information that is relevant and necessary to get the job done. The module tracks the entire journey of the goods from port of loading to port of discharge on an interactive world map, and presents the results in a clean, color-coded interface.
We strip away the clutter to show the key risk information that a bank examiner needs at a glance, with the option to dig deeper when needed.
What the module covers
Sanctioned and high-risk jurisdiction detection, fully customizable per bank. High-risk countries, ports, and trading routes are configured to your institution's risk appetite.
Dark activity detection. The module flags AIS transponder gaps and plots them on the map, showing exactly where and when a vessel went silent.
Ship-to-ship transfer identification. STS operations are flagged automatically within the context of your trade.
Ownership and operator risk indicators. Changes in beneficial ownership structures are surfaced alongside the rest of the journey data.
Vessel sanctions screening and high-risk flags, running in parallel with watchlist screening already running in TradeSpeed.
B/L event history, including transhipment events, so you can match what the documents say against what actually happened.
A full vessel technical and compliance profile for every ship involved: type, gross tonnage, deadweight, year built, ownership chain, and relevant compliance indicators.
IMO number search support. For teams that need to investigate outside the context of a specific presentation, the module also supports search by IMO number and date range independently of the current presentation.
What makes TradeSpeed's vessel monitoring different
From the start, we designed this module around the people and teams who actually use it: document examiners and trade finance operations, compliance leads, and transaction banking teams. Understanding them and their needs, led us to two differentiators we think set this apart from other solutions on the market:
A friendly but comprehensive interface built for the user. We focused heavily on making the data accessible without overwhelming the user. When examiners open a vessel check, they see the key information displayed clearly, with color-coded risk types for fast navigation. They can choose to dig deeper if needed, but the initial view gives them what they actually need to make a decision. No data fatigue. No hunting through tabs.
We track the journey of the goods, not just the ship. Goods move between vessels at transhipment points. TradeSpeed visualizes the multi-vessel journey on a single timeline that maps to the actual trade presentation: departures, arrivals, port calls, and vessel changes, all in sequence. This is end-to-end visibility that institutions can rely on.
We've been testing this with banks, and the reaction has been encouraging. When you strip away the information overload and present vessel intelligence in the context of the actual trade, examiners move faster and with more confidence. They spend less time assembling data and more time on the decisions that matter.
We've also heard from banks that the lower barrier to entry matters. Some institutions have invested heavily in vessel tracking data from external providers but struggle with adoption because the tools are too complex for day-to-day use. By improving the UX and embedding the data directly into their trade finance compliance workflow, we make that investment work harder.
Try it yourself
If your team is still piecing together vessel intelligence from multiple platforms (or worse, from screenshots), we'd love to show you how this works in practice.
We'll walk through a real scenario and show you how TradeSpeed's vessel monitoring fits into the end-to-end documentary examination workflow, from data extraction through screening, examination, and compliance checks.
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 | Aisling Mullins Chief Product Officer Ais is a seasoned product leader with a strong background in trade finance and technology. She has more than a decade of experience in FinTech and has held roles at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Ireland and most recently served as CPO at MonetaGo before joining Complidata. |
