Meanings
- A notional bank where favors (acts of goodwill in a relationship) are tallied up.
Founders in a crisis call Altman first, relying on his knack for high-speed trading in the Valley’s favor bank[…]
2016 October 3, Tad Friend, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker3 more examples
“You ever hear of the Favor Bank?” “The Favor Bank? No.” “Well, everything in this building, everything in the criminal justice system in New York”—New Yawk—“operates on favors. Everybody does favors for everybody else. Every chance they get, they make deposits in the Favor Bank.[…]
1987, Tom Wolfe, “The Favor Bank”, in The Bonfire of the Vanities, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, →ISBN, page 384What is this Favor Bank?’ ‘It was an American writer who first mentioned it. It’s the most powerful bank in the world, and you’ll find it in every sphere of life.’
[2005, Paulo Coelho, The Zahir, Harper Perennial, →ISBNTom Hopkins, the well-known sales trainer and author, calls this the favor bank in How to Master the Art of Selling (1982). In every relationship, there is something called a favor bank. Whenever you do someone a favor, you are making a deposit in this bank.
[2010, Joel Gendelman, Consulting Basics, American Society for Training and Development, →ISBN, page 140
Origin
Popularized in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
favor bank. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/favor%20bank
“favor bank.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/favor%20bank. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “favor bank,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/favor%20bank.
Source: favor bank on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.