Article
Lost in translation: the hidden language barrier in financial services
June 30, 2026
Content Director & Product Manager at Life Moments
AER. Compound Interest. ISA Allowances. All “familiar” terms we come across in financial services. But to the average consumer these terms can be rather puzzling, intimidating or meaningless. Even seemingly normal everyday words like ‘advice’ carry a different meaning in our industry. When did we stop considering what customers think these words mean?
Encountering financial jargon for the first time is like being handed a map written in a language you don’t speak, then being expected to reach your destination without sufficient support. Sometimes consumers may recognise terms we use, but the specific financial meanings are lost on them.
What is simple for us to understand, is sometimes alien to the same people we are trying to help. We've become desensitised to how people outside the industry interpret our language. It's high time we addressed that. It’s high time we addressed the financial language barrier between industry and consumers.
The language barrier hiding in plain sight
That gap shows up in more ways than we often realise. As we all know, complex language not only creates confusion but can easily lead to misinformed decisions, delayed action and, in some cases, no decision at all. Someone might ignore a product purely because it appears too complicated.
A review commissioned by the HM Treasury in July 2025 found that standard risk disclosures such as "capital at risk" are frequently misinterpreted by consumers. So why not say it plainly? “You could get back less than you put in” is honest and easy to understand.
Sometimes the issue isn't simplifying language, but making it more meaningful. A high risk investment could be explained not only as a category, but should come with a real explanation of who the product was designed for and what a potential loss would actually look like. TISA UK research has shown that when language was more balanced and specific, he amount invested increased by 14%.
But beyond explicit jargon, there’s a bigger danger creeping up on us; that we may not recognise in the moment that there is a communication barrier.
Cue dual meaning words.
Many industry terms seem self-explanatory, but consumers often interpret them very differently. Take wealth. Most people hear the word and assume it doesn’t apply to them, picturing millionaires rather than their own net worth, whichever size. Resilience sounds like a personality trait, not the ability to financially withstand a shock. And affordability is often seen as a lender’s assessment, rather than a question of whether someone can realistically sustain repayments over time.
Jargon has an obvious problem: it discourages people from asking for clarification because they feel they should already know the answer. Dual meaning words are trickier. They create the illusion of understanding, where both the customer and the firm believe they're speaking the same language, when in reality, they're not.
Advice vs. advice
Advice is perhaps the most deceptive word in the industry. Those outside of financial services understand advice to be helpful tips on what to do, a steer in the right direction when making a decision; they don’t think of it as a regulated professional service with legal restrictions. And that gap in understanding can have real consequences.
Jessica* wanted to apply for a credit card but wasn't sure which one was right for her. Faced with many options and descriptions she found confusing, she asked her bank which card they would recommend. That simple question immediately put the bank colleague in a difficult position, who, as a non-adviser, couldn't recommend a specific product. What followed was a frustrating back-and-forth, with the bank repeatedly telling Jessica that they couldn't help, and Jessica becoming increasingly confused about why such a straightforward question couldn't be answered.
In the end, she found the experience so off-putting that it took her over a year to revisit applying for a credit card. She never applied for a credit card with them, and ultimately changed her current account to another bank too. The bank didn't lose her because of a poor product or, on paper, improper customer service. It lost her because the conversation reached an impasse.
The obvious question is: what do we do about it?
The FCA acknowledges the need for change in the way financial services communicate and present information, particularly mentioning this in PS25/20 on CCIs, encouraging firms to “innovate” to meet consumers' needs and use “plain English rather than technical jargon” when explaining products.
That's an important step. But tackling jargon alone won't solve the problem.
Many of the words we use every day in financial services aren't technical at all. They're ordinary words that carry very different meanings inside and outside the industry. If we want to make financial services more accessible, we need to make sure the words we use mean the same thing to customers as they do to us.
That could mean:
Using simpler, more accessible language across customer communications.
Testing commonly used terms with consumers to identify where interpretations differ.
Providing plain-English explanations of key concepts at the point they're needed, without disrupting the customer journey, through embedded explainers.
Rethinking whether some industry terms need replacing altogether.
Clearer communication won't remove every barrier between consumers and financial services. But it's one of the few changes that can improve almost every customer interaction without requiring new products, major technology investment or regulatory reform.
Ultimately, the goal isn't simply to use simpler words. It's to create shared understanding. Because whether it's a product page, a chatbot or a face-to-face conversation, success depends on both sides meaning the same thing when they use the same words.
*Names have been changed
