In finance, every word carries weight. Discover the five traits that set great NYC financial copywriters apart—and why clear, strategic writing is essential for financial brands navigating today’s markets.
Read time: 3 mins 50 secs
Someone once told me, “99% of business has nothing to do with business.”
As an NYC-based financial copywriter with 18+ years of experience writing for top-tier institutions across global finance, I can tell you from firsthand experience, this statement is true.
However, the path between a copywriter’s keyboard and the kinds of messaging that impacts markets is rarely a straight line.
It takes more than great writing and a great understanding of the financial services industry to be a great financial copywriter.
In this post, I’ll dive into what I believe is required for copywriting excellence in the financial services sector.
After all, the right words move markets—and the wrong ones erode trust.
For marketers, content leads, agency managers and anyone hiring a financial copywriter in New York City, the words you publish for your brand, or clients, matter a lot.
Here’s what’s covered in this post:
Clarity without compromise
Likely the most important skill necessary for financial copywriting is the ability to distill complex technical concepts into lay terms without omitting critical information.
Detangling the original intent of a client’s direction is an exercise in decryption.
After all, jargon is a product of efficiency.
Therefore, reducing jargon to its constituent parts results in multiplication, not reduction.
For example, “Synergy,” from the Greek sunergos, means “working together,” which is two ideas: together (sun) + work (ergon). When writing within hard character limits for digital formats while trying to avoid space-saving jargon, the challenge is clear.
Financial fluency
So how does a copywriter know the difference between noisy jargon and critical information within the financial industry? Experience.
A joke I often tell is this: “I could have used my global finance experience to make millions of dollars. Instead, I write copy for people who make millions of dollars.”
In short, to write like an MBA, you kind of have to be an MBA—or at least be good at faking it.
The only way to do that is with experience.
Fluency based in real world experience within the global banking industry is what separates average financial copywriting from true expertise.
Regulated industries
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to just develop great writing skills and a fluency in financial markets. There’s also legal to consider.
Legal limitations are always gating what financial copywriters—and the content agencies they hire—can say (or not say) in the marketplace.
A clear understanding of what claims can be made is critical for success as a financial copywriter, because the most impactful writing in the world will never see the light of day if it triggers pushback from the client’s general counsel.
Strategic thinking
There’s never one, big picture. There are always multiple pictures layered on top of one another.
The strategy driving creative is one. The brand’s business goals are another.
Then, there is the team you’re working with (usually marketing) and then those within the subsets of that team.
Knowing what needs to be said to satisfy often shifting priorities in a multi-dimensional landscape, which itself is in service of an industry with it’s own volatility, often comes down to instinct.
Collaborative resilience
At any given time, a single project might involve a strategist, an account lead, two PMs, a compliance team, a head of product, and a ghosted email thread that still needs resolution.
Great financial copywriters understand this—and they know how to keep moving anyway.
Holding the line on clarity while adapting to feedback from multiple directions means staying flexible (and calm) when the targets shift and nerves fray. Recognizing that the agency is managing internal expectations just as much as external outcomes, especially in the high-pressure world of global financial services, can mean the difference between success and failure.
Collaboration, in every sense, is just as important as writing skill regardless of sector. In finance, however, the stakes are always incredibly high, so staying cool under pressure is an absolute must.
For financial copywriting, content strategy, campaign development, or brand storytelling…
Michael Anthony Bradshaw is a creative executive and B2B content strategist based in New York City. He’s led content strategies and creative executions at The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Edelman, Digitas, and for clients like Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan, Novartis, Morgan Stanley, Visa, Accenture—and now advises institutional brands on how to publish with clarity and purpose.