More companies than ever—both large corporations and small to mid-sized businesses—are trading goods with and providing services in foreign countries. In 2022, the US imported and exported $758.4 billion worth of goods to and from China alone.
How do these companies keep multinational partners in the loop despite language barriers while dealing with massive sums of money? The answer is financial translation, which is increasingly sought by localization managers to translate various documents, communications, and other financial materials. These include the following:
If you’re among the many looking into professional financial translation services, the information to follow will aid in your evaluation.
Which are some of the more popular providers of financial document translation, and how do they compare to one another? Here’s an overview.
Smartling helps customers take advantage of the powerful combination of professional translation services and AI translation technology, with a workspace built for content translation at scale. This results in time and cost savings, while also allowing our customers to achieve and maintain exceptional translation quality.
However, the complexity of certain projects sometimes demands 100% human translation. In such cases, our linguists are also equipped to take financial translations from start to finish, capturing all the nuances of the original text accurately.
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Stepes services banking institutions, accounting firms, insurance companies, investment firms, and stock brokerages. It offers translation of SEC filing materials, shareholder briefs, investor newsletters, DeFi translation, and more.
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GTS Translation provides translation services for a wide range of financial institutions worldwide. The company specializes in translating financial and business documents in over 80 languages, including certified translation of annual reports, prospectuses, sales brochures, economic reports, bank statements, insurance documents, and more. Pros:
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BLEND does financial document translation for both personal and business use cases. The company can translate a variety of text from fintech website copy and RFPs to audit reports and investor information. More than 120 languages are supported for a total of over 3,200 language pairs.
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Rush Translate is a popular choice for the translation of documents like mortgage applications, tax returns, bank statements, and more. Both standard and certified translations are available.
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You’ve gotten an overview of some of the top providers. Now, you need to know the top things to look for in a translation partner so you can make an informed choice. After all, they’ll likely be handling documents that not only demand total accuracy but also require fast turnarounds.
1. Compliance and enterprise-grade security Confidentiality is paramount when translating sensitive business information. This is especially so when it concerns income, bank account information, audit reports, insurance documents, and other private documents. If translators fail to adhere to cybersecurity best practices or use tools that do not prioritize data security, data breaches are not just a possibility. They are inevitable. You can’t settle for anything less than a service provider who has extensive measures in place to protect your information. Smartling, for example, has industry-leading security and is in compliance with PCI, SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR standards. Not to mention ISO 17100, ISO 13485, and ISO 9001:2015 for language services.
2. Understanding of locale-related differences As with all types of translation, the local culture and regulations play a significant role in financial translation. Both usually demand a level of localization—in other words, translating not just the individual words but the entire reading experience. Therefore, it’s important to consider differences in customs, financial terminology, and commonly used words and their meanings. For example, where UK financial statements would read “Creditors,” US statements would read “Accounts Payable.” Similarly, for non-English speaking countries, direct transliterations of financial terminology will likely be insufficient.
As translators work, they often also need to take into account differences in currency, units, and even variations in formatting.
3. Quality assurance measuresTranslation errors in general can damage the reputations of all involved—both translators and stakeholders. And there are many types that can make their way into financial translations. So, strong quality assurance processes are needed to catch them before they turn into bigger problems after publishing. What are just a handful of issues a good financial translation service provider will have measures in place to prevent?
1. Inconsistent terminology: Most words in the English language have interchangeable synonyms, but that may not be the case in your target language(s). For example, while “bank statement” and “account statement” mean the same thing in English, it may be confusing for a translator if both terms are used interchangeably without explanation. In this case, it would be best to stick to using either “bank statement” or “account statement” or have a terminology database (or use translation memories) with agreed-upon terms.
2. Number inaccuracies: For a translator, it can be easy to mix up numbers after a long day of translating and staring at the screen. Regional differences in the way numbers are rendered can add another challenge. For example, most English-speaking countries separate thousands with a comma and decimals with a period. But many other countries like Germany use a period to separate thousands, and in Switzerland, an apostrophe separates the thousands. As you can imagine, that may be confusing for some translators.
3. Formatting differences: Besides the way numbers are written, basic formatting differences in financial documents can make errors more frequent. For example, bank statements and balance sheets in Europe may be formatted differently or have different categories from their American counterparts. Translators would need to be aware of this nuance to work effectively.
4. Tone of voice inconsistency: Although financial translations are often largely number-based, some financial documents, such as audit reports, are text-based. These may need to be presented to global stakeholders and typically adhere to a specific tone of voice. When translating such financial reports, linguists must ensure that the company’s desired tone is rendered similarly in the target language while also keeping cultural norms in mind.
When considering financial translators, it’s worth having a conversation about how they consistently and efficiently spot and correct issues like these. For instance, our translations undergo a monthly quality check consisting of external, third-party auditing and real-time AI-powered quality assessment. This enables us to deliver accurate, on-brand translations and maintain a multidimensional quality metrics (MQM) score of 98—surpassing the industry average of 95.
Financial document translation with a 100% quality guarantee Translating financial documents into different languages is a weighty responsibility. When hiring a translation company, it’s crucial to choose one with financial services expertise. It’s also wise to select one that offers reliable translation software that produces accurate translations, decreases time to publish, and reduces your translation costs.
With Smartling, you get access to all of the above. Check out our top-rated translation management system, as well as our full suite of translation services—both of which are backed by a 100% quality guarantee.