Okuzeka
Finance & Banking vocabulary · Financial Statements

Write off

Meaning in finance & banking, with examples

phrasal verbCommon term

In finance & banking, write off means: To remove a debt or asset from the accounts because it has no value or will not be recovered, and record the amount as a loss.

In Turkish: aktiften silmek, zarar yazmak, kayıtlardan çıkarmak

How it is used

Used in credit, accounting and collections. Banks write off bad loans after recovery efforts fail. The noun is 'write-off', with a hyphen. Writing a loan off in the accounts does not cancel the borrower's legal debt.

Example sentences

  1. The bank has written off 200 million lira of bad loans this year.

  2. We will write off the remaining balance once the legal process is complete.

Common collocations

  • write off a loan
  • write off bad debt
  • write-off of loans
  • partially written off
  • non-performing loanA loan on which the borrower has stopped making payments, usually for 90 days or more, or which is unlikely to be repaid in full.
  • provisionAn amount a bank sets aside from its profit to cover expected losses on loans that may not be repaid.
  • defaultFailure to make loan or bond payments as agreed. A borrower is usually treated as in default after missing payments for a set period, often 90 days.
  • depreciationSpreading the cost of a long-term physical asset, such as a machine or building, over its useful life; also a fall in the value of a currency or asset.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Financial Statements

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level:

This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not financial advice.