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Translation in Financial Services
Translation in Financial Services

The changing digital and business environments have boosted financial translation.
While on the one hand demands and expectations have increased manifold, the
strides in technology and MT have assisted to a large extent.

Kinds of Documents in Financial Translation

Financial translation includes documents of the following kinds.

● Annual Reports
● Balance Sheets
● Business Plans
● Tax Reports
● Cash Flow Statements
● Auditor Reports
● Prospectuses
● Privacy & Security Policies
● Marketing Materials

Emerging Environment

Banks are going digital. People operate bank accounts from the comfort of the
homes from different parts of the world. Money crosses boundaries more frequently
than people.
Digitization is being used as a marketing strategy. Financial institutions are going
digital to woo larger markets. Access to data is essential for the customer. This is
giving rise to an accelerated growth using technology.

The range of interaction, artificial intelligence, data analytics and block chain
process automation has given rise to a new kind of language, which is formal enough
to communicate technical financial information, and casual enough to be
comprehendible by the common customer. This phenomenon is an interesting study
in translation of financial language. The need for translation AI based interactions is
evident. Especially when banks in one country have no national, geographic, or
cultural boundaries anymore.

There is greater access to data, consumer as well as corporate. Firms use this data
and technology to accelerate growth. The digitization of the environment of financial
data also calls for adaptations in the way we translate data, marketing content, as
well as financial information. It also affects that way we reach out and interact with
clients.

Considering the wide range of interactions we have with clients in the financial
markets, the need for financial translation has increased that much more.

Multilingual chat boxes require translation and AI. Localization is essential in AI

and similarly phrased questions need to be better adapted towards possible
interpretations as well as misinterpretations on the part of the client. The translator
and developers have to balance between formal and academic phraseology on the
one hand and casual or colloquial style on the other.

The translation in the financial domain requires, more than before, future-proofing
our methods, language, and style. Financial statements, reports, websites, banking
apps and interactive chat windows are now required almost INSTANTANEOUSLY,
as opposed to the past where there was sufficient time and justification for
bureaucracy. Today the linguist is a service provider and banks are too. Every retail
customer is king and a valuable stakeholder and asset to the financial institutions.

Challenges -Previous & Emerging

Translation in financial matters presents challenges of its own kind. The financial
area, like software, is one with constantly emerging with new terminology which in
turn arise due to newer concepts in banking and finance. These concepts, practices
and ideas do not necessarily have similar ideas in outer markets. In financial
markets, we are not only crossing linguistic boundaries, but even boundaries of
economic, banking, and financial markets. We are not translating culture but banking
ideas.

For example, the term checking account is used in the USA for what we generally
known to be a current account in India and the UK. Similarly, different communities
use the word remittance and deposit for the same idea. Such terminological
difference compound the issue of lexical equivalence in financial translation.

The numbering and decimal systems in Europe and the rest of the world are
different. Whereas the UK and other parts of the world use the ‘.’, most European
countries use the ‘,’.

From the financial and legal perspective, fluctuating exchange rates present an
added challenge. The values represented in reports sometimes require conversion
in local currency – which are constantly fluctuating. It becomes important to make a
reference to the date and exchange rates considered. As reports become dated,
references to amounts will also undergo a change.
Regulatory differences, legal, economic, and financial environment of either market
need to be understood by translator, because that sometimes becomes instrumental
in adapting translations.

Financial translation also has legal implications and is a matter of great responsibly
and risk. Translators are required to be sensitive to the specific and critical data that
they are translating and should make efforts to ensure that such data is not
underplayed. It is not only a legal but also moral responsibility. Sometimes, including
accompanying notes may be of help to the reader to pay special attention to an area
where the source text or writer may not. Clearly this is not the intended role of a
translator, but certainly, there is an added responsibility

Emerging Expectations

The changing environment has raised the bar for financial translation. Attention to
detail, and perfection are expected more than before. There are severe
consequences should one fail. Due diligence and checking of documents become
necessary.

Translators also need to adapt their style and tone to the audience for whom the
translation is meant. When the audience are customers or bank employees or
internal consumers, the style is different. For the purpose of legislations, taxation
and audit reports, the style and terminology must be formal and academic.

Reprieve for Translators Today

Luckily, digitization has provided translators with tools for flexibility and speed. With
strides in AI, MT post editing has come as a boon to translators, especially
considering the large volumes of translations nowadays. MT eases their work in
creating the raw translations and lets translators focus more on other finer aspects
such as verifications, key and critical data, and correctness of meaning. It reduces
the need for manual and repetitive tasks of writing and typing mundane texts.

MT however cannot replace humans totally. Human intervention in the form of post
editing is an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY.

At the same time, new tools such as MT will also present greater challenges for
traditional translators who will need to learn and unlearn their ways of working. They
will need to drop their fastidious dogmas about translation, pricing, and quality, and
will need to reassess their judgments based on the technology available today.

WordPar International is a translation and localization company in Bangalore, India

offering a range of financial translation services across the world.

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