The global maritime industry is facing a fragmentation problem as shipping companies struggle to manage escalating regulatory data across siloed systems, according to a new report from Marcura.

The report, titled The Fragmentation Problem in Maritime Compliance, revealed that 82% of maritime leaders now view compliance as a growing demand in their roles. However, 80% of respondents cited siloed data and communication channels as a major inhibitor to operational efficiency.

The report noted that the manual cost of onboarding and KYC (know your customer) for a single counterparty can now commonly reach levels of between $1,500 and $3,500, driven by the need to navigate diverging sanctions regimes and a shadow fleet of more than 1,500 vessels.

“Our process used to be heavily PDF-driven. The team introducing the counterparty would get them to fill out a form with their details,” said Bianca Knight, General Manager, Commercial Claims at Pacific Basin Shipping and a contributor to the report.

“That would go to the due diligence team making manual checks, then documenting the screening results, sharing them and storing them in a way that’s auditable so you can show later that you’ve completed a due diligence process on this counterparty.”

She noted that the company, which operates more than 200 dry bulk vessels, saw its manual processes overwhelmed by a spike in sanctions in 2022. By adopting a digital platform, the company was able to scale its operations without increasing headcount, providing an auditable trail for due diligence.

Similarly, Emirates Shipping Line has also moved to digital processes to handle compliance screening efficiently at scale without building a large operation around it. 

“Sanctions compliance used to be simpler. Twenty years ago, you knew which countries were off limits, you avoided them, and that was largely the end of it. Today the regulatory landscape is more complex. Libya, Syria, Russia, each conflict has added new sanctions territory to navigate,” said Fieke Nijland, Vice President, Legal Counsel at Emirates Shipping Line. 

“In container shipping, a single vessel might carry five thousand containers. So theoretically, you could have five thousand bills of lading, each with a shipper and a consignee. Some containers carry multiple cargoes from different parties.”

“You only fully know who the shipper is when cargo is presented at the port. That leaves very little time to complete due diligence before containers are loaded. If results come back too late and a problem cargo is already aboard, you’re into mitigation territory. 

Process automation

Enesel Group has also been enthusiastic in following the path toward compliance automation, with Mike Gerasymov, Global Head of Corporate Risk, explaining that he had inherited existing systems with no dedicated compliance team. He reimagined the function to move toward automating as far as possible.

“The first thing I built was an agentic AI chatbot. Staff can paste information like an email thread or a list of names into the chatbot interface. It then validates entity names, prompts if a legal suffix is missing, and structures everything into a clean list,” he explained.

“A key benefit is that the chatbot shields users from frequent back-end changes, which are often disruptive, even when they’re positive. Our people use the same interface while we keep developing what sits behind it. All they notice is that response quality improves and turnaround time shrinks.”

Mr Gerasymov notes that, while compliance management might appear complex on one level, it also consists of certain principles and criteria which can be described in natural language.

“Today, 80 to 95% percent of previously manual compliance work can be automated at minimal cost and with very limited software development expertise,” he said.

The report also detailed the growing intersection of financial and environmental compliance. The Hong Kong Convention (HKC), which entered into force in June 2025, requires every vessel to maintain an Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM). One seven-vessel fleet quoted in the report estimated it spent more than 4,000 hours per year on manual IHM administration alone.

Further complexity arises from Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from the supply chain), which can account for up to 60% of the total carbon footprint of a shipping company. However, the report suggests that most maritime organisations have minimal visibility into these emissions.

Shared infrastructure

The authors advise that the industry’s reliance on manual integration layers in an era where all of this compliance data needs to be strictly managed is unsustainable. Compliance teams often use multiple screening platforms that produce divergent results for the same counterparty, forcing staff to piece together risk fragments.

To address this, the report proposes a shift toward shared infrastructure and recognised compliance. This includes the development of unique identifiers to link entities, Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) structures, and transaction history across systems.

Andrei Grigoras, Senior Vice President at Marcura, argues that the goal is to move from fragmented effort to a unified ecosystem. He said that when compliance is embedded into day-to-day workflows, commercial teams can regain speed and reduce payment friction.

“The results are measurable: faster deal execution, lower operating cost, stronger counterparty and bank confidence, and a clearer link between compliance investment and performance,” he said.

“Can new approaches turn ‘not another compliance tool’ into ‘can I get a clear answer without all this work?’ This report is an invitation to that conversation.”