On September 9 SWIFT hosted a Financial Translation Round Table meeting at its head offices in La Hulpe near Brussels. The initiative was taken by the TAUS Data Association with the aim to promote innovation and interoperability in financial translation.
The meeting was attended by a small group of twelve people representing seven organizations with an interest in financial translation activities. In opening the meeting, Guy Van Leemput, head of e-channel product management at SWIFT, stated that the financial industry can benefit a lot from closer collaboration and sharing of translation memories: “Consistency and clarity in the use of financial terminology is a goal that SWIFT supports. As the need for translation in financial industries also keeps growing, we are keen to explore opportunities of industry-wide collaboration that may lead to greater efficiency and benefits for all.”
During the one day meeting participants from International Accounting Standards Board, R.R. Donnelley Financial, Software Daten Service, Oxford Conversis, CLS Communication, Telelingua and Society for Worldwide Inter-bank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) discussed the value proposition advocated by the TAUS Data Association (TDA). In analyzing the opportunities and barriers from open collaboration and sharing of translation memories, the participants concluded that the opportunities of standardized terminology leading to better quality and cost savings through the sharing of TMs outweigh some of the identified barriers, such as the confidentiality of financial data and the challenge to get enough financial organizations in the public and private sector to participate. (See list of the top five opportunities and top five barriers at the bottom of this article.)
It was decided to schedule follow-up meetings and get more organizations involved in this Finance Collaboration Network. The dates of these meetings are:
- Webinar for Finance RT (November 18).
- 2nd Financial Translation Round Table hosted by SWIFT (April 22).
TDA members have already uploaded more than 1 billion words in 92 language pairs. A small portion of this is currently in the financial domain. SWIFT has also made its corpus of around 1 million words available in 3 languages to be shared with TDA members. In the follow-on webinar on November 18 TDA will demonstrate the value of terminology search for the financial industry.
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