The Baltic Exchange's Escrow Service for its members to hold deposits for ship sale transactions goes live today (15 October). The service is run out of Singapore and led by Chris Jones, the Baltic Exchange's Head of Asia who is a former Sale & Purchase shipbroker with over 40 years of experience.
Based on a new Baltic Escrow Form developed by the Baltic Exchange, the service will be subject to the Singapore Exchange's (SGX) detailed compliance and money laundering procedures. OCBC Bank will be providing the joint deposit account.
To use the service the buyer needs to be a member of the Baltic Exchange, although there are plans to expand this in the future to support transactions where the seller or broker is a Baltic Exchange member.
Commenting on the new service Chris Jones said "There's been a good deal of interest in this service since we initially announced it in April. We hope to expand this service to dispute-related issues such as bunkers in the near future."
The service costs US$5,000 per side.
