By Zhao Yu
"On a single contract I save close to $100," said Zuo Xingang, a seafarer who has spent more than 20 years on international routes, 12 of them as captain.
His wages used to be sent by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) out of Cyprus to China, and an intermediary bank took an $11 fee off every payment. The sum was small, but over an eight- or nine-month contract it added up to a real loss. "It always bothered me," he said.
On October 30, Zuo and 25 other seafarers were issued a new Bank of Ningbo payroll card tailor made for them—one that handles both renminbi and foreign currency.
Ningbo maritime authorities brought shipping companies, banks and foreign-exchange bodies together to close a gap that had long dogged the way the industry pays its crews, so that wages now arrive in full and nothing is lost along the way.
Hidden Losses, a Long-Standing Gap
For an ordinary seafarer, a dozen or so dollars a month looks like loose change, but over time it becomes a serious dent in income. Zuo points out that with more than 20 crew members on a single vessel, the loss mounts quickly by the month and by the year. Cross-border payroll used to mean cumbersome paperwork and a long chain of handlers, with no dedicated channel or financial service built for seafarers. Quiet deductions were hard to avoid, and no one had come up with a systematic fix.
In August, MSC Ship Management (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. used the Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration's maritime finance service platform to open a direct line to banks and go straight at the problem.
With backing from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange's efforts to make remitting pay for staff working abroad easier, the bank designed a bespoke arrangement: bulk review instead of case-by-case paperwork, an unbroken cross-border transfer chain, and no intermediary handling fees at all.
The bank also sets aside a separate currency-conversion allowance based on payroll, so the money does not eat into a seafarer's annual personal quota. Crew can transfer funds, convert currency and check balances over the ship's internet connection.
"What this is worth goes well beyond the money seafarers save. It makes crew pay transparent, steady and predictable, and it gives big shipping companies a better handle on managing compensation," said Qian Yingjie, director of the crew management division at the Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration.
Setting Terms, Settling Disputes
The seafarer payroll card is the latest upgrade in Ningbo's push to strengthen protection for crews, and another answer to the problems they face day to day.
In 2025, the Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration, working with human resources and social security departments, issued a model labor contract for seafarers, setting standard terms at the outset and heading off disputes. Through local service stations, the city handled dozens of labor disputes at sea over the course of the year and recovered millions of yuan in wages owed to seafarers.
In July, Ningbo opened its first one-stop center for waterborne disputes, pooling resources from several departments so that mediation, arbitration and judicial confirmation can run end to end, making it simpler and faster for crews to press a claim.
Earlier measures mostly tackled employment disputes and help that came after the fact. Cross-border payroll deductions, by contrast, sit in a technical gap where finance, foreign exchange and shipping meet—an old problem the industry had never solved.
"The joint launch of the dedicated payroll card fills the last financial piece of the seafarer protection puzzle," Qian said.
Quality of Support Is the Real Draw
MSC's increasing presence in Ningbo is no accident. In July 2025 it set up its first ship management company in China, in Beilun, and in June 2026 it officially opened the MSC China Crew Recruitment and Placement Center.
"MSC has put core operations such as Chinese crew dispatch, ship management and recruitment in Ningbo not only because of the city's strong position as a port hub, but because it recognizes how systematic and finely built Ningbo's seafarer service ecosystem is," said a manager at MSC Ship Management (Ningbo) Co., Ltd.
With seafarer supply tightening worldwide, shipping competition is no longer only about vessels and routes—it is also a contest over keeping crews and building service systems.
"For crews far out at sea, wages that arrive in full, easy currency conversion and backup on shore are concrete things that decide whether they feel they belong to the job," said an official with the crew management division of the Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration.
For the industry, Ningbo's experiment has clear demonstration value.
According to Zhao Dan, who heads the logistics management department at Ningbo University's Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, the hardest part of protecting seafarers is rarely a shortage of rules—it is a shortage of coordination across institutions and government departments. Ningbo's innovation fills exactly those gaps in the industry's institutional framework.
To successfully compete for maritime talent, the key lies in steadily cutting friction on the job and avoidable occupational losses. Pay that arrives intact and service that works are core soft power for a city trying to keep maritime talent.