Fintech meets boat buying
New BoatsOnFinance.com allows consumers to search for boats by estimated monthly budget rather than purchase price. Marine finance specialist SALT has launched BoatsOnFinance.com, a new digital platform designed to change how consumers approach one of the largest discretionary purchases they will ever make.
Launching today, the platform is the first in the UK to allow buyers to search and filter boats by estimated monthly affordability rather than headline purchase price, placing finance at the beginning of the buying journey instead of the end.
This reflects wider changes in consumer purchasing behaviour, where affordability has become central to major buying decisions. While sectors such as automotive have long embraced monthly budgeting as the starting point for purchasing, boat buying has traditionally remained centred around total purchase price.
SALT believes that approach no longer reflects how modern consumers make financial decisions.
The platform has been developed following time spent simplifying marine finance for customers and dealerships, giving SALT first-hand insight into how consumers engage with finance when purchasing high-value leisure assets.
Joe Dalton, CEO of SALT, said: “We’ve spent the last year successfully making boat finance quicker, simpler and easier to understand. BoatsOnFinance.com is the natural next step because it puts finance at the front of the buying journey. People don’t usually buy a car by focusing on the overall purchase price – they think about what comfortably fits within their monthly budget. We believe boating deserves the same approach.”
The launch comes as affordability and changing consumer behaviour continue to reshape purchasing decisions across many sectors. British Marine’s latest UK Marina & Moorings Market Report identified affordability, changing customer demographics and softer enquiry levels among the challenges influencing future market growth. BoatsOnFinance.com has been developed in response to those changing expectations. By allowing consumers to search by estimated monthly payments rather than purchase price, the platform introduces a more transparent and realistic way to begin the boat-buying journey.
With more than 1,000 live boat listings from 16 carefully selected UK dealerships at launch, the site has been designed to complement, rather than replace, the dealer network by generating qualified enquiries based on feasible affordability.
Joe added: “For many people, the purchase price immediately answers the question of whether they think they can afford a boat. Often, that assumption is wrong. We want to give consumers a clearer understanding of what’s genuinely achievable, allowing them to make informed decisions with confidence. At the same time, we’re helping dealers engage with customers whose expectations are aligned with realistic monthly budgets.”
As the platform grows, SALT intends to work with additional carefully selected dealer partners as part of its wider vision to reshape how people discover and buy boats in the UK.