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The Pitfalls of Translation for Financial Services

…and be warned, there are many!

QuickSilver Translate is in touch with all the new developments in the world of finance and insurance. We offer professional translation for Financial Services. Whether you work with hedge-funds, derivatives or re-insurance; QuickSilver is able to respond to your translation needs precisely and effectively, guaranteeing you the highest possible quality of translation.

The current recession has generated many new opportunities, above all in emerging markets, but competition is fierce from both local and foreign businesses. High quality translation and multilingual documentation could mean the difference between success and failure in a new market.

Mistranslation

The importance of working with a language service provider which specialises in the financial sector cannot be overstated. To take an example: bad debt management. Anyone with business experience knows that this expression means the management of bad debts, and that a bad debt is an amount of money owing to a company which is unlikely to be paid. Yet we have seen this translated into Spanish as “mala gestión de deudas”, which simply means bad management of debts. There is nothing in the English syntax which tells us that the adjective refers to “debts” rather than to “management”. Only specialist knowledge can resolve issues like this, and the world of translation is full of them.

Local Legislation

QuickSilver also has wide experience responding to the challenges faced by companies which outsource to other parts of the globe; both in terms of intra-company co-ordination, and compliance with different legislative systems.

The translation of financial documents requires an extremely high degree of accuracy and fidelity to the original text. Even a slight imprecision could potentially have very serious implications for business decisions.

Industry Terminology

It is fundamental that the translator have a comprehensive grasp of current legal terminology in both the source and target languages. If either of these languages are spoken in more than one country, then the translator must be aware of the regionally-specific usages which may (or may not) exist. A poor quality translation will often make mistakes on issues such as the difference between a UK and a US billion, a decimal point or a decimal comma, or the conversion of metric to imperial units.

It is considered good practice to check the figures of a financial (or indeed any) document as a part of the translation process. We correct any obvious mistakes there may be, and request further clarification from the customer about less obvious ones. A curious consequence of this is that an LSP will occasionally end up with various error-free translations of the same original text; while also finding and correcting errors in the original!

In short, translation for Financial Services requires professional, qualified translators with specific knowledge in this area. At QuickSilver Translate, we can guarantee exactly that.

Contact us for more information, or a quote.

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