Compliance and FINMA translation. Writing in the authority's language

Directives, client files, reports: a compliance team writes for its staff, for the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and for the auditor. Every language must say the same thing. Corrext does this in Switzerland, with the terms of the acts.

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Each term, in the official text

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

intermédiaire financierFrenchGerman521 results

Un intermédiaire financier qui agit au nom et pour le compte d’autres intermédiaires financiers autorisés ou affiliés à un organisme d’autorégulation selon l’art. 24 LBA ne peut procéder à des opérations de transmission de fonds et de valeurs que pour un seul intermédiaire financier.

Ein Finanzintermediär, der im Namen und auf Rechnung von anderen bewilligten oder einer Selbstregulierungsorganisation nach Artikel 24 GwG angeschlossenen Finanzintermediären handelt, darf dies im Geld- und Wertübertragungsgeschäft nur für einen einzigen Finanzintermediär tun.

SR-955.033.0 GwV-FINMA-OBA-FINMA-ORD-FINMA - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

Lorsqu’un intermédiaire financier informe un autre intermédiaire financier du fait qu’il a effectué une communication en vertu de l’art. 9 LBA ou de l’art. 305, al. 2, CP, il le consigne sous une forme appropriée.

Informiert ein Finanzintermediär einen anderen Finanzintermediär darüber, dass er eine Meldung nach Artikel 9 GwG oder Artikel 305 Absatz 2 StGB erstattet hat, so hält er diese Tatsache in geeigneter Form fest.

SR-955.01 GwV-OBA-ORD-AMLO - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

L'assouplissement de l'interdiction d'informer ne s'applique évidemment pas lorsqu'un intermédiaire financier a des raisons de penser que l'autre intermédiaire financier pourrait être impliqué dans une opération de blanchiment d'argent.

Die Lockerung des Informationsverbots gilt selbstverständlich nicht, wenn ein Finanzintermediär Grund zur Annahme hat, der andere Finanzintermediär könnte in eine Geldwäschereitransaktion verwickelt sein.

EFV FF20075919 Botschaft-zur-Umsetzung-der-revidierten-Empfehlungen-der-Groupe-daction-financière- - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

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Supervisory vocabulary, in all four languages

Compliance vocabulary is that of the supervisory acts, published in the three official languages. An internal directive that departs from these terms becomes hard to match with the text it implements. 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
Geldwäscherei	blanchiment d'argent	riciclaggio di denaro	money laundering	art. 305bis CP
Finanzintermediär	intermédiaire financier	intermediario finanziario	financial intermediary	art. 2 LBA
Sorgfaltspflichten	obligations de diligence	obblighi di diligenza	due diligence obligations	art. 3 LBA
wirtschaftlich berechtigte Person	ayant droit économique	avente economicamente diritto	beneficial owner	art. 4 LBA
Meldepflicht	obligation de communiquer	obbligo di comunicazione	duty to report	art. 9 LBA
Bewilligung	autorisation	autorizzazione	licence	art. 3 LB
Finanzmarktaufsicht	surveillance des marchés financiers	vigilanza sui mercati finanziari	financial market supervision	art. 1 LFINMA

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 compliance teams cite every day

Swiss compliance combines a criminal law provision, an administrative supervision act and an act that organises the authority. Ordinances and circulars then specify the obligations, in the same three languages.

AMLA

Federal Act on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

DEGwGFRLBA

It sets out the due diligence, identification and reporting obligations of financial intermediaries

FINMASA

Federal Act on the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority

DEFINMAG

It organises the authority, its supervisory instruments and its procedures

BankA

Banking Act

DEBankGFRLB

It makes banking activity subject to a licence and imposes prudential requirements

SCC

Swiss Criminal Code

DEStGBFR · ITCP

Its Article 305bis defines the money laundering offence to which the whole compliance framework refers

Translating compliance, in practice

Compliance translation carries supervisory obligations into the language of the people who must apply or check them: internal directives, due diligence documentation, reports to the authority. The vocabulary is set by the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), the Financial Market Supervision Act (FINMASA) and their ordinances, published in German, French and Italian.

Compliance documents

Internal directives
A directive applies to every branch. Its translation must be identical from one language region to another, version after version.
Due diligence files
Identification documents and the documentation on the beneficial owner contain personal data. Highly sensitive content mode keeps everything in Switzerland.
Reports to the authority
A report is filed in an official language. The terminology must be that of the supervisory texts, not that of internal training material. Domain in the CHnell concordancer: Supervisory (FINMA).
Written procedures
Procedures cite articles of the AMLA. Fast lookup CHnell shows the article in the three official languages, with its source.

What Corrext brings to this area

Correspondence

Exchanges with the authority often go out within the day. Text translation accepts up to 10,000 pasted characters, with the engine of your choice.

Staff training

Training material and e-learning are translated in their original formats, including .ppt and .pptx, up to 25 files of 50 MB per upload.

Traceability

A review ordered in Translation projects leaves a record of the level chosen and the delivery time approved, document by document.

Foreign engines

Choosing an engine hosted abroad triggers the Attorney-Client privilege notice before anything is sent, so the internal rule applies at the very moment of the choice.

Three compliance tasks that go through translation

Directives

A single due diligence policy

The directive is drafted at head office and applied in Geneva, Zurich and Lugano. The translation memory ensures that a revision touches only the passages that have changed, and the AMLA terms stay identical from one language version to the next.

Supervision

A report due to the authority

The team prepares the report in English, and it must be filed in an official language. A Full review by a legal translator checks the passages that cite the applicable texts, and the delivery time is known before you approve.

Client files

Due diligence to reconstruct

The documents contain personal and banking data. Highly sensitive content mode requires storage and processing in Switzerland only, with no reuse in a translation memory.

Frequently asked questions on compliance translation

Can client data go through a translation engine?

It depends on the engine and the mode. Storage stays in Switzerland in every case; with LexMachina or in Highly sensitive content mode, so does processing. Engines hosted abroad display the Attorney-Client privilege notice, which reminds users of your organisation's policy: fully pseudonymised documents only.

How do I keep directives identical in four languages?

Work from a translation memory that belongs to your organisation, fed by projects in Standard confidentiality. Then fix sensitive terms in your own terminology resources, which Fast lookup CHnell shows alongside its 30 sourced domains.

Is supervisory terminology covered?

Yes. The concordancer includes a Supervisory (FINMA) domain and a Banking & Finance domain, built from official sources. Each occurrence opens in context with its reference, so you can check a term before fixing it in a directive.

Can I translate training material in PowerPoint?

Yes. The .ppt and .pptx formats are supported like Word, Excel and PDF, up to 25 files of 50 MB per upload. The material comes back in its layout, so you do not have to rebuild the slides after translation.

What level of review for a document submitted to the authority?

At least a Full review by a legal translator, who checks the text line by line. When an attestation is expected, Double review & certified translation involves two translators and a specialised agency, and comes with a certificate. You choose document by document.

Do translations leave a trail that can be used in an audit?

The Translation projects workflow records the review level chosen and the delivery time approved for each document, so every step is on record. The confidentiality mode chosen also determines whether the content may feed a translation memory.