verb
- past tense and past participle of overlend; to lend excessively or beyond prudent limits
Usage: finance/banking context; often used in discussions of lending practices and financial risk
Examples
- The bank overlent to risky borrowers during the housing boom.
- Financial regulators warned that institutions had overlent without adequate safeguards.
- The lender overlent to developers who could not repay their mortgages.
- Critics argued the central bank overlent to struggling member states.
- After the crisis, banks became more cautious about how much they overlent.