In the fast-paced world of financial technology, the need for accurate and efficient communication is crucial. As fintech companies continue to expand globally, the demand for financial translation services has become increasingly important.
Going beyond just financial services, translation plays a crucial role in bridging linguistic and cultural gaps, providing top-tier customer service, and ensuring accurate and localized content for diverse audiences across industries. In fact, Native English speakers are often confused by the financial jargon used in fintech, making translation services even more essential for those with international clients.
In light of the numerous document types and extensive legal and regulatory requirements that must be taken into consideration, modern fintech translation processes can be challenging but, financial translation depends on the right mix of experience, attention to detail, and a structured process for evaluation and quality assurance.
What Does Fintech Translation Entail?
Fintech translation involves the careful translation of software, quarterly and annual reports, balance sheets, business plans, financial statements, investment fund prospectuses, and more. These documents must be accurately translated to meet the needs of international clients, creating the need for particular expertise: financial translation.
Accurate financial translation is particularly important in fintech as an erroneous interpretation could make it harder to understand a product. Similarly, a poor translation could hinder the understanding of a particular fintech report. Along with ensuring accuracy, financial translation services ensure that a company’s documents and messages are correctly interpreted, staying true to the business’ intent and conveying the information as intended.
Beyond accuracy, fintech companies need translation capabilities in order to tap into new markets and as such localize their documents and content. This is not only to adapt one’s messaging, but also because every country has its own rules, regulations, and customs when it comes to handling financial information and conducting banking and financial services.
With the help of financial translation services and proper localization, companies can access new markets, increase customer trust and ensure regulatory compliance.
Identifying Unique Translation Challenges in Fintech
Financial documents are often full of jargon and obscure terminology, and when translated, the meaning and message of the document can easily become distorted if not handled correctly. translation services like Unbabel come into play to ensure that compliance requirements are met when a company is dealing with multiple currencies and different financial regulations while also ensuring translation accuracy at all times.
Specialized Fintech Terms
One of the distinct challenges facing fintech companies with respect to translation is the specialized terminology used within the industry as this language may be unfamiliar to translators who lack specific expertise in this domain. Moreover, the abundant use of acronyms poses an additional hurdle. Translating these acronyms accurately while preserving their intended meaning requires skilled linguists with a deep understanding of the financial sector. Such translation also involves understanding both the context and the meaning of the term, ensuring it is accurately translated and conveyed to the target language.
For example, a fintech company creating a mobile app for a bank must ensure that acronyms such as “API” (application programming interface) and “BaaS” (Banking as a Service) are correctly translated into the target language. Similarly, those working with cryptocurrency may need a translation partner to convert terms like “blockchain” or “DeFi” (decentralized finance) into their clients’ native language.
Regulations and Legal Requirements
Financial translation services for fintech companies must also consider the country’s regulations when translating content. The documents must comply with the local laws and banking and financial regulations in each country and your translation partner must be up-to-date on the local rules and regulations in any areas they serve and must ensure that the translation complies with those regulations. Fintech content requires high compliance standards as it almost always deals with things like customer data, personal details, sensitive information, or large sums of money, all of which require extra security precautions in order to keep customers safe while also protecting the financial service provider from liabilities.
Document types
Financial translation services must also be able to interpret and accurately interpret a variety of specialized fintech documents, such as audit reports, press releases, financial statements, prospectuses, and balance sheets, to name a few. Many fintech companies also face the difficult task of translating technical documentation, software, applications, and websites.
Overcoming Fintech Translation Hurdles
Financial translation can be a complex and challenging process as it requires experienced linguists with a deep understanding of the financial industry. Financial translation services must ensure that documents are accurately translated and in line with regulations, and that quality is maintained throughout their translation projects. Attention to detail, a system for review and approval, and subject matter expertise are essential. A translation partner needs to understand financial terms to deliver error-free translations and build trust with stakeholders.
Rising to the challenge of fintech translation requires a combination of experience, careful attention to detail, and a system for review and approval. Translating financial documentation into another language is an immense responsibility since it can potentially affect the way a business is perceived in its target market.
First, those taking on the challenge of fintech translation need to have strong experience in the financial industry and the target language. Attention to detail is also paramount, and careful research of the financial terms and concepts being translated is necessary to ensure that both the nuance and context are correct. Every translated word should be fully understood before being included in a document, and effort should be made to keep consistent language throughout.
Lastly, the establishment of a review and approval system for all translation work is key. This can help ensure accuracy and reliability across all translated materials.
Solving For These Challenges With Unbabel
As an integrated AI-powered global language service provider, Unbabel’s technology-driven approach helps its customers simplify and optimize their translation workflows while ensuring accuracy, supporting cost reduction, and providing compliance with regulatory requirements. Furthermore, Unbabel’s experienced linguists are trained in the customer’s preferred terminology and any terminology translation memories are regularly updated.
For example, Unbabel recently worked with GoCardless, a fintech leader that processes recurring payments around the globe. Due to the financial nature of GoCardless’ customer tickets, its team members were constantly reacting and spent most of their time engaged in phone support – an approach that was fundamentally unsustainable and lacked scalability.
To streamline GoCardless’ operations, Unbabel linguists started with the aim of automating a significant portion of customer tickets. In a matter of weeks, sufficient data was gathered and the customer’s preferred terminology was understood by translators enough to enable the automation of GoCardless’ most frequently encountered inquiries.
Fintech translation is a complex and challenging process that requires experienced linguists with deep subject matter expertise. Luckily, Unbabel’s machine translation and unique LangOps (language operations) solution helps to simplify and streamline the translation process, ensure compliance with local regulations and enable fintech companies to access new markets with accuracy they can trust.
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