Sectors We Serve
Accurate financial translation and confidential interpreting for UK banks, insurers, accountants and fintech, in 300+ languages.
Prism Linguistics provides accurate financial translation and confidential interpreting for UK banks, insurers, accountants, investment firms and fintech companies, in more than 300 languages. Documents go to translators with a finance background, and a second qualified linguist reviews the work before it reaches you.
Financial language work leaves little margin for error. A transposed figure in a set of accounts, a defined term translated loosely in a contract, a regulatory phrase that loses its precise meaning: each of those carries a real cost. The two things this sector asks of us above everything else are accuracy and discretion, and both are built into how we work rather than bolted on at the end.
Fluency on its own is not the qualification here. A translator who handles marketing copy beautifully can still misread provisions, accruals or impairment, and in a set of accounts that is not a stylistic slip. It is a factual error, and it can end up in front of an auditor.
So we pick the linguist by background rather than by availability. Depending on what the document actually is, that means someone who has worked in finance, accounting, banking, insurance or compliance, and who reads the source language as a native. Financial, accounting and regulatory terminology has fixed meanings, and a translator who has met those terms in practice uses them the way your reader expects.
Figures get treated as data, not as prose. Numbers, dates, currencies and percentages are checked back against the source rather than retyped from memory, and decimal and thousand separators are converted deliberately, because the convention differs between countries and getting it wrong quietly changes a balance sheet. Where a document defines a term on page two and uses it again on page forty, the defined term stays the same word all the way through.
Every job is then read by an independent second linguist against the original. That review is what keeps a long report consistent, and it matters even more across a document set. Send us three years of accounts with the notes and the auditor's report, and we keep a running glossary so the same term is not rendered three different ways in three different files. Our general document translation service works the same way; the finance-specific part is who does the work and what gets checked.
Most financial document translation we handle falls into five groups. The lists below are what actually arrives in a normal week, not a closed menu.
Annual reports, financial statements, audited accounts, balance sheets, profit and loss statements, cash-flow statements, management accounts and audit documents. Tables, footnotes and comparatives are rebuilt to match the original layout so the two versions can be read side by side.
Investor reports, shareholder communications, prospectuses, investment documentation, loan and mortgage paperwork, and bank statements. Statements are often needed as evidence for a visa, a mortgage application or a court matter, which usually means a certified translation rather than a plain one.
KYC packs, anti-money-laundering documentation, compliance manuals, regulatory submissions, due diligence material and tax documents. Onboarding files tend to arrive as a bundle of scans in three languages at once, and we are set up for that.
Policy wordings, schedules, endorsements, claims documentation, loss adjuster reports and correspondence with policyholders. Claims files often mix medical, legal and financial content in the same bundle, so the translator has to be comfortable in more than one register.
Product content, in-app copy, onboarding flows, help centres and financial websites. This is where website translation and localisation matter, because number formats, date order, currency display and regulatory wording all have to change with the market, not just the words.
Not everything happens on paper. We provide interpreters for audits, due diligence sessions, financial consultations, client and investor meetings, insurance claims interviews, banking appointments, contract negotiations and compliance interviews.
For anything in a room together, an audit at a client site, a claims interview, a meeting where documents are passed across the table, book face-to-face interpreting. For account queries, advice calls, short compliance checks and anything that comes up without notice, telephone interpreting is quicker to arrange and often the better fit. Plenty of clients use both: a scheduled interpreter for the formal sessions, a phone line for the follow-up questions the following week.
A good financial interpreter stays out of the way. They render what is said in the first person, they do not summarise, they do not offer opinions, and they ask for a repeat rather than guess at a figure. If your meeting relies on a specific document, send it in advance and the interpreter will read into the terminology beforehand. That single step improves an audit or a due diligence session more than anything else we can suggest.
The work comes in from across the sector, and each part of it asks for something slightly different.
Banks and mortgage lenders mostly need customer-facing documents and evidence handled properly: statements, loan paperwork, correspondence with account holders whose English is limited. Accountancy firms send accounts, audit material and tax documents, usually against a filing date. Insurers and their loss adjusters send policies and claims files, where the reader is often the policyholder rather than a professional, so plain wording in the target language counts for a lot.
Investment firms, wealth managers and private equity teams tend to arrive with deal documents and reporting packs, and with a confidentiality requirement attached before anything is sent. Fintech companies and payment providers work on volume and repetition: the same product content, kept consistent across markets, release after release. Independent financial advisers and professional services firms sit in between, sending one file at a time but needing it right.
If you sit outside that list, tell us what the document is and who will read it. We will match the linguist to both.
A lot of what we translate for this sector should not be public yet, or ever. Results before they are announced, board papers, M&A and deal documents, investment memoranda, claims files, customer records, internal compliance material. Treating that carelessly is not just embarrassing, it can be market-sensitive.
Every linguist who touches your job works under a signed non-disclosure agreement, and we will sign yours as well, before any file changes hands, if that is what your policy requires. Files are shared only with the people actually working on the job. Handling is in line with UK GDPR, and we will follow your own information security requirements where you have them.
We would rather set the NDA up first and quote second than the other way round. If that suits you, say so when you get in touch and we will send one over before you upload anything.
Nothing exotic. Just the things that tend to decide whether a financial translation goes well:
Send us the documents, or just the project details if you would rather not share files yet, and we will come back with a confidential quote. An NDA can be arranged before anything is uploaded.