Island Oil Safeguards Payments & Trade Compliance with Pole Star’s PurpleTRAC

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Pole Star Global, the pioneer and market leader in maritime intelligence technology, with the largest blue water fleet under management, announced that Island Oil, a supplier and trader of marine fuels, is using Pole Star Global’s PurpleTRAC platform. PurpleTRAC enables Island Oil’s credit and compliance team to automate and streamline its trade compliance operations when trading fuels. Island Oil uses PurpleTRAC to replace previous manual processes and consolidate disparate software systems, and to meet global regulatory frameworks more effectively and accurately, such as OFAC’s advisories. This supports Island Oil in swiftly securing payments across the industry without glitches. PurpleTRAC is also helping Island Oil’s compliance team to monitor dark fleet activity – and it has supported the organisation to expand its lines of credit and improve operational efficiency.

Island Oil – a stalwart in the global bunker market

As an international company, Island Oil Holdings Limited operates physical supply stations across Cyprus, Romania, and Israel, and boasts ownership and self-management of 11 bunker vessels. Additionally, the business extends its influence with offices in key global hubs. This includes Piraeus, Singapore, London, Constanta, Haifa, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

Island Oil Ltd serves as the flagship of Island Oil Holdings and is a stalwart in the global bunker market too. Integral to the success of Island Oil are its top-tier vessel screening, compliance, and credit systems. Facilitated by Pole Star Global’s PurpleTRAC solution, Island Oil has streamlined its processes and ensured accuracy in compliance due diligence.

What is more, PurpleTRAC enables Island Oil to front up to any potential “dark fleet” activity, which can provoke feelings of apprehension, for any credit manager. Island Oil is able to take a more diligent approach to risk mitigation and regulatory compliance on a case-by-case basis when needed. The platform has insightful capabilities and can help trade compliance teams to identify and investigate dark fleet activity and bad actors. PurpleTRAC investigates vessel movement, ownership, flag registries, and operators with ease for Island Oil.

Kieran Michael Brown, Group Credit Risk Manager at Island Oil says, “Credit risk has a significant role in our industry, but compliance has become equally vital since global regulations tightened. Banks now scrutinise compliance as they process payments. We must ensure we adhere to our compliance procedures, including screening vessels for compliance, with the help of tools like Pole Star’s PurpleTRAC.”

Expanding lines of credit and improving operational efficiency

Successfully using PurpleTRAC has enabled Island Oil’s banks to expand their lines of credit through factoring agreements. This decision was significantly influenced by the robust compliance and credit systems at Island Oil, facilitated by PurpleTRAC.

Moreover, Island Oil’s primary marine insurance provider granted a Discretionary Credit Limit. With this, Island Oil affords the flexibility to extend insurance coverage to selected companies, and without the cumbersome process of individual applications. This streamlined approach eradicated uncertainties surrounding approval, enhancing Island Oil’s operational efficiency.

“After adopting PurpleTRAC our banks increased our lines of credit (factoring agreements) based in large part on our compliance and credit systems. Similarly, our main marine insurance company recently provided us with a Discretionary Credit Limit, i.e., we can simply choose to apply insurance to the companies we would like to insure without having to apply for each company individually and hope our provider approves it. Since we can factor a higher percentage of our invoices if the invoices are insured, this becomes a kind of virtuous circle,” adds Kieran Michael Brown.

PurpleTRAC – entity screening, flag history checks, and dark activity monitoring

Pole Star Global is a world leader in predictive maritime insights, data, and is trusted by governments, military agencies, shipping companies, and financial institutions. PurpleTRAC enables customers to act responsibly in areas of trade finance, emissions control, life at sea, surveillance, sanctions checks, and operational and reputational risk management.

For Island Oil, Pole Star’s PurpleTRAC platform has streamlined vessel screening operations, reduced false positives and instances of non-compliance. Key features of the platform include:

  • Entity Screening: By harnessing top-tier data from Pole Star’s esteemed partners at Dow Jones Risk and Compliance, PurpleTRAC meticulously screens vessels and their associated ownership. This risk intelligence solution conducts thorough checks against economic sanctions lists (including U.S., U.S. DOC, OFAC, EU, and UN), scrutinises Port State Control (PSC) inspection records, and analyses movement history to identify any recent visits to blacklisted ports or sanctioned countries.
  • Flag History Checks: Leveraging Pole Star’s cutting-edge technology, PurpleTRAC provides in-depth insights into a vessel’s flag history, shedding light on instances of flag hopping.
  • Dark Activity Monitoring: With PurpleTRAC’s advanced dark activity monitoring, concealed vessel ownership, registration, and activities are brought to light. This critical feature plays a pivotal role in detecting potential non-compliance and suspicious behaviour, thereby mitigating risks associated with regulatory oversight evasion.

Captain Steve Bomgardner, Vice President – Shipping and Offshore, Pole Star Global says, In the fast-paced realm of maritime compliance, regulatory updates occur as frequently as every 12 minutes. As such, the landscape for commodity traders, charterers, and stakeholders in ship-to-ship bunkering and oil and gas trade is constantly changing. Staying ahead of these developments isn’t just important – it’s essential. Therefore we are pleased to have worked with Island Oil to support its compliance team with improving its ability to be compliant. What is more it has been rewarding to see how the technology has helped improve their operations.”

To read more about this case study with Island Oil please follow this link for more detail: https://www.polestarglobal.com/resources/island-oil-ltd-unlocking-precision-using-purpletrac-for-compliance-and-vessel-screening-operations