Top-tier Bank Translated 1.2 Million Words Across 6 Languages, 30% Faster
About the Client
This bank has been around since the 1800s and has 40 million customers in over 60 countries. They do retail banking, wealth management, corporate finance and global trade. Over the years they have built a reputation for being careful with compliance and pushing digital innovation.
The Challenge
The project sounded simple: translate a large set of customer documents and marketing materials into Indian languages. In reality it was anything but.
The volume was huge, over 1.2 million words in total. The content was brochures, reports and legal papers, all of which had to be accurate to the last detail. Some of it was highly technical, especially the financial terms, while other parts had to feel like a marketing copy. On top of that the layouts of the brochures had to stay exactly the same, deadlines for several regional campaigns were already fixed and security rules were super strict because of the type of data involved.
The Solution
We set up a process that mixed technology with people who knew the banking space inside out. First we brought in translators with finance experience. To speed things up we used machine translation but each batch was checked by an expert to make sure it was still accurate.
Design work was done at the same time as translation to make sure the products looked and felt the same in all languages. We figured out a way to convey data so important files would stay protected. We built a lexicon and a translation memory to make sure terminology was the same in all files. That cleared things up.
The content was split up so the customer could start looking at it right away instead of having to wait for the whole 1.2 million words to be done. That made it easier to stick to the campaign timelines.
The Result
After 12 weeks the bank had 1.2 million words translated into 6 Indian languages. Review cycles were smoother, 30% faster because everyone was working from the same approved terminology. 5 regional campaigns launched on time. Designs stayed intact, no rework was needed and all security requirements were met.In reality this meant the bank could communicate with Indian customers in their own languages without delays or compliance headaches. What was a big, complicated translation project became a process that worked.
