Why Financial Translation is tricky?

The financial business is such a competitive one which needs much time, accuracy and consistency when it comes to translating its materials. Here, you can find that professional financial translation services are paramount and they are the only way to ensure that your business can successfully operate and shine in the multilingual global market. Translating a financial content is somehow a complex task that will need a solid and a wide knowledge in the financial field as well as a high attention to detail.

Financial translation involves managing specialized materials that differ from other standard business and marketing content types such as; financial statements that covers annual and interim financial reports, corporate communications, mergers and acquisitions, compliance and regulatory documents, legal agreements and transfer pricing documents and etc.

Each of the above documents has its own peculiarities and all of them front some difficulties when the translation is ongoing.

Types of documents in financial content translation

Financial businesses or industries deal with different documents that will always need financial translation services in place and these include;

•         Annual reports

•         Financial reports

•         Rating reports

•         Courses of financial training

•         Outturn accounts

•         Invoices

•         Accounting books

•         Financial balances

•         Valuation of assets

•         And etc

Hardships associated with financial content translations

The difficulty in specific terminology; financial terminology translation is a major challenge in the financial world which financial translators face. Financial translators will need to have expert and in-depth knowledge in understanding financial terminologies they meet in financial statements, financial records, etc, as well as more than one country financial knowledge because they differ from country to country. So to maintain consistency in translation, financial terms will need to be translated the same way across different materials such as quarterly and annual reports must use the same words

Let’s see an example here that should be observed thoroughly, the terminology should not only be consistent across documents but must also comply with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Board that must be signed by the European Union. This, therefore, demands attention from linguists to keep up-to-date with all changes that may occur at any time as translation versions are all legally binding.

Working with financial numbers; this is a much more tricky step when translating financial documents, it’s one of the things that will ensure that terms are consistently translated, but as I mentioned earlier that in  the financial department in an organization, you cannot move, delete, or even add any figures when translating financial documents involving numbers or rather the whole documents will be rendered inaccurately translated. When dealing with numbers in financial translation, decimals, dates and currencies in different countries should be carefully worked upon and ensure that consistency of usage is carefully ensured throughout the documents.

Specialized financial materials; financial business has specialized materials like merger and acquisition materials, compliance documents, price sheets, and corporate communication, etc. as mentioned earlier in the second paragraph of this article, these documents are different compared to others like marketing material and technical manuals and each will pose its own challenges when in the translation process.

What happens in the financial translation is that, its original documents will always be delivered in different file formats like InDesign, word, excel or PDF and each of them will be processed differently in order to have accurate translations.

Tight deadlines in financial translations; in the financial world, the financial reports need to be ready and released as soon as the figures are, and can mean one thing for the translation service providers that high volumes of work needs to be quickly worked upon. Financial statements have fixed release periods which puts the translators on high pressure to speed the work to meet the tight deadlines, this will raise a call for translation agencies to mark and acknowledge the calendars of financial businesses or industries so as to work in accordance with their dates.

Confidentiality; financial industries are involved in confidential issues both for their clients and their own firms. This means the language translation company must ensure that no single  information should be released to any an unauthorized party. In case the financial records, financial statements, annual accounts information need to be translated, it’s the role of language translation company to ensure that the information is kept safe and confidential. Therefore, any translator that will work on any financial project should have a Service Level Agreement in place and must have signed Non-disclosure agreement to ensure data protection

Therefore, it’s advisable for financial industries, clients to work with professional language translation service providers who have professional translation linguists with prior experience and expertise in the financial field. Proper terminology management is a very critical part in financial translation, hence, it’s important that linguists have extensive knowledge with the financial industry so as to keep consistency and provide the highest quality within the most demanding deadlines. It’s also very vital to keep financial documentation safe and secure be it on the side of the client or the translators team.

Finally, ensure that you are working with a language translation service provider who processes, financial translations that can best suit your business interests in terms of quality cost and time.