5 Questions a Financial Company Must Ask of Language Services Provider

Last Updated July 21, 2020

Expert insights on what to ask a potential financial language services provider – and how they should respond.

Financial translation is tough. Finding the right language services provider shouldn’t be—as long as you know the right questions to ask.

By asking these five questions, you’ll be able to determine if a provider has the right service and technology mix to help you achieve success in your global financial communications, and to push you to evolve your offering over time.

1. How well do you know your (financial) stuff?

You need assurance that you’re dealing with a language services provider who has true financial translation expertise. Because the financial sector is highly regulated, your provider should be familiar with the major regulations impacting financial documents.

Ask potential providers about their financial translation background. They should have a formal education or professional background in banking, economics, or accounting and should be able to answer detailed questions about the types of financial assets they’re translating.

And remember, the expression and formatting of financial figures varies across the globe, so be sure your translation team includes in-country, native-speaking linguists who specialize in financial translation.

2. How do you enable speed to market?

In the race to market, timing is everything. Your translation provider can’t slow you down or create bottlenecks. Instant or next-day translation are possible through machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Ask potential providers about their technical capabilities and how they balance speed with accuracy. Strong providers can articulate how they employ a combination of machine learning with linguistic expertise to ensure the most precise and timely translations.

3. Can you support FinTech solutions?

Many language services providers can give you solid translation of financial documents—that’s just table stakes. The most advanced providers can do more than manual translation.

The best providers are up to speed on the latest FinTech developments and can support your linguistic quality assurance needs for whatever technology you’re developing, whether it’s a financial services app or blockchain technology.

So, ask potential providers for examples of FinTech endeavors they’ve supported and how they’re keeping up with the these constantly changing technologies. Top providers will have a list global brands they’ve helped to push new apps and other technologies to market.

4. Can you integrate with our existing technology?

If a language services provider’s tech doesn’t play well with your tech, then that provider is a non-starter. But how do you know if your technology systems will be good teammates? That’s the trouble with companies that sell one-size-fits-all translation solutions: they usually don’t fit anyone and result in costly upgrades to your systems.

Ask providers for evidence or a free demo of how their tech will integrate with your systems. For example, if you use a CMS or CRS platform, ask potential providers if they can integrate neural machine translation with your systems; then ask for a demonstration. The best providers will happily comply.

5. How do you measure project success?

Translation quality is subjective. Business results are not. Ask potential language services providers how they can help you measure the return on your linguistic investment and fully understand the benefits of your localization or translation program.

This is a tough question for most providers, but the best of the best will show you how they use a combination of analytics and market-certified quality assurances to help you achieve a strong ROI.

Looking for a financial language services provider?

Summa Linguae Technologies offers a range of multilingual content solutions to support your most complex translation needs. We connect you to global markets with unprecedented efficiency using in-country, native speaking linguists and cutting-edge language services technology.

By leveraging your target audience and subject matter experts in the vetting and testing of your content, we can help you communicate authentically – and achieve market-certified translation quality.

To learn more, check out our Financial Translation Services.

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