favor bank

Popularized in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987).

favor bank

1. A notional bank where favors (acts of goodwill in a relationship) are tallied up.
   • 1987, Tom Wolfe, “The Favor Bank”, in The Bonfire of the Vanities, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, →ISBN, page 384:

     “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. […]

   • [2010, Joel Gendelman, Consulting Basics, American Society for Training and Development, →ISBN, page 140:

     Tom 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.]

   • 2016 October 3, Tad Friend, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker‎:

     Founders in a crisis call Altman first, relying on his knack for high-speed trading in the Valley’s favor bank […]