Making the business case for Financial Services, featuring TD Bank and plain language expert Deborah Bosley.

1. Plain Language Matters.
Words Matter
Making the business case for Financial Services,
featuring TD Bank and plain language expert
Deborah Bosley.

2. Welcome to our webinar!
● Our call will last approx. 1 hour.
● Please ask your questions in the ‘Question’
facility.
● We have a Q&A session at the end.
● There is a short survey at the end.
● Recording and slides will be shared a few
days after this webinar.
Your VisibleThread
Host Today:
Evelyn Wolf
CMO

3. Meet Our Speakers
Taylor-Jane Thompson – TD Canada Trust
Taylor is a Senior Analyst at TD Canada Trust. She has held various roles
within the organization over the past 6 years, both in the retail branch and in
head office. Taylor has recently led a Clear Language initiative, and is looking
forward to expanding the suite of Clear Language documents within TD.
Deborah S. Bosley, Ph.D. – The Plain Language Group
Deborah is the Founder and Principal at The Plain Language Group, LLC. For the past
20 years, she has helped Fortune 100/500 banks and investment firms create written
content that is easy for people to understand and use. Her clients have included Bank
of America, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, PwC, TIAA, USBank, Wells Fargo, and TDBank in
Canada.

4. Plain Language Matters:
Making the Business Case
for Financial Services
Deborah S. Bosley, Ph.D.
deborah@theplainlanguagegroup.com |
704.641.1334
Over to our first speaker for today…

5. Topics
● What are the problems?
● What is plain language?
● What is the business case?

6. Common, Needless Complexity
● Dense text
● Financial | legal jargon
● Weak formatting
● Action not clear
● Too much information
● Wrong assumptions

7. Wasted Money, Wasted Hours
● $37 billion in wasted time annually =
● $62.4 million lost per company =
● $26,041 annually per worker
● $75,000 wasted editing hours annually

8. Increased Clarity

9. Lack of Trust
2018 Edelman Trust Index

10. One Bank’s Intro to Privacy Policy
Introduction and scope of policy
This Wells Fargo Digital Privacy and Cookies Policy (“Policy”) applies to your interaction
with Wells Fargo & Company or any of its subsidiaries (collectively, “Wells Fargo,” “we,”
“us,” “our”), at any online or mobile site or application that we own and control (“Site”),
unless a different online and/or mobile policy is posted at a particular site, or is made
available to you and by its terms supplants this Policy. Other privacy policies may also
apply in addition to the terms of this Policy. As examples, certain additional Wells Fargo
privacy-related policies and notices are posted on the Privacy Policy Index. These include
the Wells Fargo U.S. Consumer Privacy Notice, which also applies to U.S. customers and
consumers as described in that notice and various international privacy policies, which
apply to information collected by us outside of the U.S. as described in those policies. You
may also receive an additional privacy notice in connection with your use of a particular
product or relationship with a specific business...

11. Another Bank’s Intro to Privacy Policy

12. Definition of Plain Language

13. Plain Language Strategies
● PLAN
1. Understand purpose(s) of content
2. Know your audience(s)
3. Understand the context
4. Write for intended readers
● STRUCTURE
1. Organize for users’ needs
2. Use headings and lists
3. Increase white space
4. Design well

14. Plain Language Strategies
● WRITE
1. Be conversational | human
2. Write short sentences | paragraphs
3. Use you-attitude
4. Use verbs
5. Use the active voice
6. Use positive language
7. Avoid jargon
8. Be concise

15. Plain Language Works

16. Build Trust
Why It Pays to Write
Shareholder Reports Well
Why Simple Language Is
Always A More
Effective
Communications
Strategy
The Lingo That’ll Save
Your Next Cocktail Party,
From ‘Rovables’ to
‘Manthreading’

17. Before
This Agreement, including the terms of service for wireless products, features,
applications and services (“Service(s)”) not otherwise described herein that are
posted at www.companyb.com, or devices, and any documents expressly referred
to herein or therein, make up the complete agreement between you and Company
B and supersede any and all prior agreements and understandings relating to the
subject matter of this Agreement. You acknowledge that you are of legal age, have
received a copy of this Agreement, and have read and clearly understand its terms.
BY USING OUR SERVICES YOU ACCEPT ALL TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT.
PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY TO ENSURE THAT YOU
UNDERSTAND EACH PROVISION, INCLUDING OUR USE OF YOUR
LOCATION INFORMATION (SEE SECTION 3.6). THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES
THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE
DISPUTES, RATHER THAN JURY TRIALS OR CLASS ACTIONS. 141 words;
16th grade

18. After
This Agreement
• Explains Company B’s terms for our wireless products, features,
applications, and services (see www.companyb.com for all details,
terms, and conditions).
• Begins once we activate any of your services.
• Replaces any prior agreements between you and us.
Please read this Agreement carefully. Sign it only if
• You are over 18 years old.
• You clearly understand and accept all terms of the Agreement
including required arbitration.
70 words; 8th grade

19. Regulations Require Plain Language
• SEC
• GDPR
• HIPAA
• ERISA
• Dodd-Frank
• TILA-RESPA
• DOL 401(k) Fee Disclosure
• …

20. Everyone Wins

21. Taylor-Jane Thompson, Senior Analyst,
TD Canada Trust
Taylor.Thompson@td.com
The Plain Language Project
Thank you, Deborah! Over to you, Taylor...

22. Plain Language Project Keys to Success
Collaboration
• Between key stakeholders
• With other projects/initiatives
Organization
• Document version control
• Decision Logging

23. Evelyn Wolf, CMO, VisibleThread
evelyn.wolf@visiblethread.com
How technology can support
your plain language journey
Thank you, Taylor! Let’s talk tech with Evelyn

24. Trust in the
financial
services
industry has
stalled1
98.5% of top global
asset management
companies in the world
have websites that don’t
meet basic readability
levels2
60% of content
produced by brands is
failing to deliver4
The #2 area where Financial
Services Companies Fall
Short is confusing
products/services3
47% of millennials
indicated they’d be more
likely to trust a financial
services company if it
created useful content5
Financial Services Trends

25. Today, organizations are publishers

26. The Communication Challenge
● Maintaining quality when content volumes are rising
can be difficult
● Content is often produced by subject matter experts,
who are not professional writers
● Communication quality is not defined
● Preconceptions about the “sophisticated” customer
exist

27. ORIGINAL
In a traditional sovereign-bond portfolio you typically can’t remove all duration risk altogether.
But even here, you can make relative plays on the yield curve that help to offset some of that risk,
isolating a particular dimension of risk such as one part of the yield curve (either 5 years vs 10 years,
or 10 years versus 30 years for example) and thus dependent on how they perform relative to each
other as opposed to directional interest rate risk exposure on either element.
It is important to ensure that one exploits one dimension of risk at a time so as not to confuse the
risk and ultimately the returns of active strategies.
The dimensions of risk, in addition to duration, available to the active manager are: curve; credit
(corporate bonds); currency; country (sovereigns, both developed and emerging market); inflation
and volatility.
This paragraph has 141 words, a readability score of 29 and a grade level of 17.9.
It comprises of 4 sentences, 3 of which are long. The longest (flagged in pink) is a whopping 70 words.
The other two are 29 words each (flagged in blue).

28. What should you aim for?
● Grade level of 8 or lower
● Readability score of 60 or higher
● 4% or less use of passive voice
● 5% or less long sentence use
● 1% or less complex language density

29. SUGGESTED WITH VISIBLETHREAD
In a traditional sovereign-bond portfolio you can’t remove all duration risk.
But even here, you can make relative plays on the yield curve to offset some of that risk. You can
isolate a specific dimension of risk. For example, one part of the yield curve is either 5 years versus
10 years, or 10 years versus 30 years. This makes the risk dimension dependent on how they
perform relative to each other. Instead of directional interest rate risk exposure on either element.
You should exploit one dimension of risk at a time. This is so as not to confuse the risk and
ultimately the returns of your active strategies.
In addition to duration, you can use these dimension of risk; curve; credit (corporate bonds);
currency; country (sovereigns, both developed and emerging market); inflation and volatility.
This paragraph has 133 words. The readability score has improved to 55. The grade level has nearly
halved to 9.0.
We have 2 long sentences, one is 25 words and the other 20.

30. Technology supports your organization –
VisibleThread Insights Platform
VT Readability – Support for Writers
§ Content creators test and fix their own content for single tone of voice
§ Instantly flag jargon and corporate-speak
§ Analyze both offline and online assets; letters, disclosure statements,
directives, blog copy etc.
§ Subject matter experts communicate their technical knowledge in jargon
free, easy to understand language
VT Insights – For Exec Oversight
§ Support your plain language program roll-out
§ Show usage and adoption across your
organization
§ Measure quality improvement across all organization assets, both
offline and online
§ Instantly see if writers are using non-compliant, off-brand language

31. Over to our audience - what are your burning questions?

32. Thank you for joining us!
Deborah S. Bosley, Ph.D., Founder and Principal, The Plain Language Group, LLC
We Make Written Content Easy to Understand.
704.641.1334
www.theplainlanguagegroup.com
deborah@theplainlanguagegroup.com
Evelyn Wolf, CMO, VisibleThread
Words matter. Measure your tone of voice.
703.888.3530
www.visiblethread.com
evelyn.wolf@visiblethread.com