Advancing MarCoPay Rapidly

Filipino seafarers account for one in four of the world’s oceangoing seafarers, or some 350,000 people. In 2019, MarCoPay Inc.^*1 was established in the Philippines with the aim of addressing the challenges faced by Filipino seafarers, their families, and related parties and helping them lead happy lives. To provide services to all Filipino seafarers, in 2021 the company rolled out MarCoPay, a financial platform based on electronic money. The platform currently provides salary payment service, money transfer, and foreign exchange services as well as various loan and insurance services.

In the roughly three years since its launch, MarCoPay has steadily established services. Consequently, the number of users has grown significantly. As of June 2024, 50 companies, or about 14% of the approximately 350 crewing companies in the Philippines, had adopted MarCoPay’s services. Moreover, approximately 99.6% of seafarers in these companies have voluntarily chosen to receive their salaries via MarCoPay’s electronic money salary payment service.

Since the establishment of MarCoPay, Ryota Takenaka has been in charge of planning and sales as the Chief Sales Officer. Since 2021, he has also been the CEO of MarCoPay group companies, managing their businesses in the areas of loans, insurance, asset management, and other services. He explains his priorities for enhancing MarCoPay’s services.
“All of our services are based on the feedbacks from seafarers and shipping companies. We have interviewed over 400 shipowners, ship-management companies, and crewing companies. Also, we conduct weekly surveys of seafarers. Selling services is of course important, but what is even more important to us is the realization of services that satisfy the seafarers who actually use MarCoPay APP. For this reason, we use the issues they raise as the foundation for efforts to develop and improve our services.”

Attentive to seafarer needs since its establishment, MarCoPay continues to collect feedback on these needs.

Using Seafarer Feedback to Find a New Focus Point

Takenaka has always valued direct feedback from seafarers and other stakeholders. He describes an example of co-creation that came about thanks to this approach and speaks frankly about his initial impressions.
“Since our founding, the achievement of evolution and growth through ambitious initiatives and co-creation has been part of our culture. Therefore, we have actively collaborated with other companies. Through an NYK Group company, Yusen logistics, we had an opportunity to talk with an executive of Kubota Philippines, Inc. (KPI), a Philippine subsidiary of Kubota Corporation. This individual suggested that seafarers account for a large percentage of the overseas Filipino workers^*2 who actively invest in the agricultural sector. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about seafarers being engaged in agriculture given that they spend more than half of the year at sea.”
After this conversation, Takenaka conducted a survey to find out more about Filipino seafarers and their involvement with agriculture.
“The number of responses quickly exceeded 1,000. The final tally showed that about 30% of the seafarers owned their own farmland and were engaged in farming. As our thoughts tend to turn toward financing and asset formation, we had no idea that there were latent needs in relation to agriculture.”
By listening to opinions from other companies as well as feedback from seafarers, we found a new focus point.

In response to the survey results, MCP Innovations Inc. entered into a formal business alliance with KPI in October 2023. The MarCoPay app introduced various types of Kubota agricultural machinery and its partner dealers nationwide, garnering 700 inquiries per month.
“A variety of personal circumstances motivated seafarers to make these inquiries, including those who wanted to use the machinery themselves and those who wanted to purchase it for their elderly fathers engaged in running farms. We feel that the survey results correctly reflected the actual circumstances of seafarers.”
For Takenaka and all MarCoPay’s employees, this example reaffirms the importance of identifying latent needs through surveys.

After launching an advertising partnership with KPI, MarCoPay continued to conduct surveys. These made it clear that Filipino seafarers face three problems in the agricultural industry: a lack of workforce, a lack of working capital, and a lack of sales opportunities. Takenaka explains that, while the services already in place can help with the lack of workforce and working capital, the company is currently working on a plan to address the lack of sales opportunities.
“For example, one idea is that selling agricultural produce grown by seafarers to seafarer training facilities, seafarer academies, and even to the ships on which seafarers work would create a virtuous circle in the communities to which seafarers belong. While conducting multiple surveys to find out what we can do for seafarers, our employees are making concerted efforts to implement such ideas.”

Making MarCoPay Part of Daily Life

Takenaka and his personnel have many opportunities to visit seafarers and crewing companies to explain MarCoPay services. In-house, Takenaka is currently developing discussions and hypotheses themed on “Why MarCoPay?” His ultimate goal is to have the question become “Why not MarCoPay?”
“I always tell personnel that rather than trying to sell MarCoPay they should keep explaining why it is a good option. I also emphasize that personnel should listen carefully to what the other party is saying and what they are concerned about, instead of trying to persuade them.”
He goes on to explain the reason for this approach.
“Some question the safety and usability of MarCoPay’s services. This is natural, since we are dealing with seafarers’ precious salaries. That is why we need to identify the psychological barriers preventing seafarers from using our services. The use of hard-sell tactics or persuasion would be like ignoring what they say. We listen to seafarers and explain with sincerity that our services are safe and secure.”
In fact, cash theft and other security vulnerabilities in financial services are a problem in the Philippines. For Filipino seafarers, assured safety and security is a prerequisite.

Takenaka elaborates on his desire to make the question be “Why not MarCoPay?” after addressing the question of “Why MarCoPay?”
“I am sometimes invited to seafarer gatherings organized by crewing companies, which give me a chance to talk directly with seafarers. At one such gathering, a seafarer was strongly opposed to MarCoPay. On the next occasion, however, the same person said to me with a smile: ‘I used MarCoPay to receive my salary and it was great. I am now a MarCoPay promoter in the company.’”
The goal is to have the question “Why MarCoPay?” no longer be asked and see the use of MarCoPay become a matter of course among seafarers. When this goal is reached, “Why not MarCoPay?” will sum up their attitude. Takenaka describes his vision.
“Our aim is for MarCoPay to become so integrated into the daily lives of seafarers and their families that people are asked why they are not using MarCoPay.”

Pursuing MarCoPay’s Endless Possibilities

A lot of physical and mental stamina is needed to listen firsthand to feedback from seafarers, explain the services, hear seafarers’ concerns, and continuously develop and improve services. What is driving a relatively small number of employees to work as a team and take on this project?
“I make an effort to create a lively environment at the company. For example, we encourage all departments to pursue their own ambitious initiatives so that employees can actively participate in projects. I listen to whatever employees propose. I tell them that it's okay if your initiatives are not 100% polished; even 40% is fine. The main thing is to start by coming up with ideas. I want employees to experience the sense of accomplishment and success that comes from achieving something on their own. More specifically, I would like them to add their own perspectives and experiences to ideas acquired from frontline operations, create outlines of services as early as possible through a super-fast plan–do–check–act (PDCA) cycle, and introduce new services. With a view to overall optimization of the company, I sometimes make comments aimed at curbing the risks associated with ideas while at other times encouraging employees to take greater risks.”

The company has received positive feedback from seafarers and shipping companies. For example, seafarers have said that they are glad they began using MarCoPay and that it has changed their day-to-day lives.
“Of course, I am happy when we get positive feedback. However, the expressions on employees’ faces when they receive such feedback are an even bigger source of happiness for me. My greatest joy is that they take pride in this work and find it rewarding. Further, by delivering good services, I want to repay in whatever way I can the shipowners, ship-management companies, crewing companies, and other partner companies that have helped us.”

Behind the growth of MarCoPay’s services is a range of feedback received from seafarers, ship-management companies, crewing companies, and partner companies as well as the employees who use these comments as the basis for creating the services. In the future, the company is considering developing services for seafarers from countries other than the Philippines and for Filipinos who are not seafarers. There is as much scope for growth as there are voices to be heard—if we listen carefully. In this sense, the day may not be far off when an exciting service that we cannot yet imagine will be created.

(Interview June 21, 2024)

• *1 MarCoPay Inc. was established in July 2019. The name “MarCoPay” stands for “Maritime Community Pay.”
• *2 Overseas Filipino workers account for approximately 10% (11.30 million people) of the population of the Philippines.