Banking and financial translation. From credit agreement to prospectus

Credit agreements, general terms and conditions, fund documentation, client notices: these documents circulate in four languages under banking secrecy. Corrext processes them in Switzerland, with the official terms.

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Each term, in the official text

Highlight a banking term: CHnell shows its German version in the same official text, with its source.

secret bancaireFrenchGerman178 results

Le secret bancaire ainsi que les autres secrets d’affaires et secrets professionnels protégés par la loi sont garantis.

Das Bankgeheimnis und andere gesetzlich geschützte Kunden- und Berufsgeheimnisse sind zu wahren.

SR-672.4 IQG-LISint-LIFI-IWTA - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

Le secret bancaire étant reconnu secret professionnel, l'autorité n'a pas accès aux informations bancaires dans cette procédure.

Da das Bankgeheimnis als Berufsgeheimnis anerkannt ist, hat die Behörde in diesem Verfahren keinen Zugang zu Informationen bei Banken.

ESTV FF20156429 Botschaft-zur-Volksinitiative-Ja-zum-Schutz-der-Privatsphäre- - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

Le secret bancaire ou un secret professionnel ne fait pas obstacle à l’obtention des renseignements.

Das Bankgeheimnis oder ein Berufsgeheimnis steht der Beschaffung der Informationen nicht entgegen.

SR-672.933.61 Ordonnance-du-15-juin-1998-concernant-la-convention-de-double-imposition-amé - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

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Banking vocabulary, in all four languages

These equivalents come from the German, French and Italian versions of the acts cited: the official term takes precedence over market usage, which varies from one institution to another. The English column uses the translation published by the Confederation on Fedlex where there is one, which has no legal force, and common usage otherwise.

German	French	Italian	English	Reference
Bankgeheimnis	secret bancaire	segreto bancario	banking secrecy	art. 47 LB
Eigenmittel	fonds propres	fondi propri	own funds	art. 4 LB
Darlehensvertrag	prêt de consommation	mutuo	fixed-term loan	art. 312 CO
Bürgschaft	cautionnement	fideiussione	contract of surety	art. 492 CO
Wertpapiere	papiers-valeurs	cartevalori	negotiable securities	art. 965 CO
Kollektive Kapitalanlagen	placements collectifs de capitaux	investimenti collettivi di capitale	collective investment schemes	art. 7 LPCC
Prospekt	prospectus	prospetto	prospectus	art. 35 LSFin

Equivalents taken from official Swiss texts, published in German, French and Italian. In Corrext, each term opens in context in Fast lookup CHnell, with its source.

The acts banks cite every day

Swiss banking law has several layers: the Banking Act of 1934, recent acts on financial services and institutions, and the Code of Obligations for contractual matters. The ordinances and circulars of the supervisory authority come on top.

BankA

Banking Act

DEBankGFRLB

It is the basis for the banking licence, the own funds requirements and banking secrecy under its Article 47

FinSA

Federal Act on Financial Services

DEFIDLEG

It governs client information, client segmentation and the prospectus

CISA

Federal Act on Collective Investment Schemes

DEKAGFRLPCC

It regulates funds, their documentation and their distribution

Code of Obligations (CO)

DEORFR · ITCO

It remains the basis for loans, contracts of surety and negotiable securities

Translating banking documents, in practice

Translating Swiss banking documents means working with vocabulary governed by the Banking Act (BankA), the Financial Services Act (FinSA) and the texts of the supervisory authority. Each concept, from own funds to the prospectus, has a legal definition published in German, French and Italian.

Banking documents

Credit agreement
A loan agreement is translated with the terms of the Code of Obligations (CO). A Full review checks rates, maturities and collateral line by line.
General terms and conditions
They change little from one version to the next. In Standard confidentiality, the translation memory makes the annual updates much faster.
Fund documentation
Prospectuses and information documents are translated into the languages of distribution, with the terminology of the Collective Investment Schemes Act (CISA) and the FinSA. Domains in the CHnell concordancer: Fund Prospectuses and Banking & Finance.
Client communications
A letter to clients often goes out the same day in four languages. Text translation accepts up to 10,000 pasted characters.

What Corrext brings to this area

Client data

A document containing client data falls under banking secrecy. Highly sensitive content mode keeps storage and processing in Switzerland only.

Foreign engines

If a team member chooses DeepL Pro, Azure OpenAI GPT or Claude, the Attorney-Client privilege notice reminds them of your organisation's policy before anything is sent. Only fully pseudonymised documents may be sent to these engines.

Tables and numerical annexes

Excel and PowerPoint files are handled just like Word documents, up to 25 files of 50 MB per upload.

Market-wide consistency

Swiss banking terms can be checked in context in CHnell, with the official source of each occurrence.

Three banking tasks where translation is unavoidable

Lending

A loan agreement in two languages

The agreement is negotiated in English and signed in German by a borrower from German-speaking Switzerland. Machine translation supports the negotiation. A Full review by a legal translator secures the signed version, with the delivery time shown before you approve.

Funds

Documentation in four languages

The prospectus and its accompanying documents must use the terms of the CISA and the FinSA. Successive versions build on the translation memory, and the terminology is checked in the Fund Prospectuses and Banking & Finance domains.

Clients

An urgent message to all clients

A change to the terms goes out the same day in German, French, Italian and English. The text is pasted straight into Text and document translation, and a Light review is enough for a message sent for information only, which does not legally bind the bank.

Frequently asked questions on banking translation

Is banking secrecy compatible with machine translation?

Yes, provided you control where the data is processed. Storage is on Swiss servers in every case, and Highly sensitive content mode requires processing in Switzerland only, with no reuse of the content in a translation memory. Engines hosted abroad display the Attorney-Client privilege notice, which reminds users of your organisation's policy: prior pseudonymisation, sensitive files excluded.

Which engines are available?

LexMachina, the Swiss neural machine translation engine trained on the country's legal and financial texts, and DeepL Pro, Azure OpenAI GPT and Claude. The last three are hosted abroad: the application flags this when you choose, before any document is sent.

Can I translate Excel files with financial tables?

Yes. The .xls and .xlsx formats are supported just like Word, PowerPoint and PDF, up to 25 files of 50 MB per upload. The file comes back in its original format, with the table structure preserved.

How do I keep annual versions consistent?

With the translation memory, fed by projects in Standard confidentiality and reusable only by your organisation. And with your own terminology resources, which Fast lookup CHnell accepts on top of its 30 sourced domains. The two work together: the memory for sentences, the concordancer for terms.

Who reviews documentation intended for investors?

A legal translator, in a Light review or a Full review depending on what is at stake, or two translators and a specialised agency for Double review & certified translation. You choose the level document by document, and the delivery time is shown before you approve the quote.

Are translated documents used to train an engine?

No. Client content is not used to train the engines. Projects in Standard confidentiality can feed a translation memory, but it stays restricted to your organisation; in Highly sensitive content mode, no reuse takes place. You choose the mode when you create the project.