Around the world, when any person does business with a financial institution, whether it’s a bank, lender, or advisory firm, it’s important that the customer feels confident in their financial security. To increase customer trust and broaden the number of clients that can access their services, financial institutions of all types should be utilizing professional translation services to ensure documents and reports are available in a variety of languages.
Globalization of Finance
The world operates on such a global scale that it is nearly impossible for financial institutions to serve clients in only one language. While English may be a prominent language in business and finance, clients from all over the world need to access the information provided by banks, advisory firms, and more. In the US, many firms only offer services in one or two languages, with Spanish as the most popular second language offered. The financial landscape looks different from it did even a decade ago, and it’s time for organizations to adapt.
Financial Terminology Is Industry Specific
Even if clients consider themselves fluent in English for day-to-day purposes, finance terminology, investing language, and industry jargon are often not learned by those who speak English as a second language. It’s not uncommon for people who grew up speaking English as a native language to misunderstand financial terminology, so the expectation that someone who isn’t a native speaker would know those same terms is absolutely ludicrous.
Legal Implications
While institutions are not required by law to provide translated documents, there are legal protections clients can seek out if they feel that their lack of English knowledge was used to take advantage of them in a financial situation. When dealing with money, it’s more important than almost any other situation to ensure every party involved has a complete understanding of the transactions that are taking place; translation is the best starting point to provide protection for clients and financial institutions.
Servicing One Language Limits Clientele
The United States is a country filled with people and families who came from other places around the world. In fact, only 1 out of every 5 households speaks English as the primary language in the household. Just by that statistic alone, offering services only in English limits financial institutions to serving 20% of the population.
It’s important to emphasize that utilizing translation services doesn’t even require the institution to have employees that speak multiple languages. While that never hurts, simply keeping a library of common documents in a variety of languages is a great first step to ensuring clients who don’t speak English can proficiently access the services offered.
Trust Is the Foundation in Finance
As mentioned above, in order for any financial institution to be successful, maintaining transparency and trust with each client is critical. When it comes to finances, no one wants to feel as if they don’t understand what’s happening with their money, even if that feeling comes from a language barrier. Language is a widely underused tool when it comes to building trust and organizations could greatly benefit from using this tool more strategically with translation.
Invest in Translation; Invest in the Future
It can be difficult to know where to start when trying to translate documents, but there are experts that exist solely to help organizations through the transition. Here at Workplace Languages, we have a team of language specialists and a wide range of translation and language services that enable organizations to enhance their offerings and increase their list of potential clients. By working with our team, each organization can access translations that will make their lives easier, increase their clients’ trust in the organization, and propel future success for everyone.
Workplace Languages
At Workplace Languages we are not limited to just translation services, we also offer our clients a wide range of corporate language solutions so they can thrive in the international business environment.
If you would like to learn more about Workplace Languages, and how we can help you with your language and translation needs, please contact us here.
