either of two accounting entries that cancel each other out.
Banking:
- set-off clause a lender's right to take possession of any bank account balance of a guarantor or delinquent debtor, through garnishment. This is known as the right of offset.
- number encoded on the magnetic stripe of a bank card that, when matched with the cardholder's Personal Identification Number (PIN), verifies the remembered PIN as the correct access code. See also Primary Account Number.
Futures and options:closing a position by purchase of an equal number of opposite contracts in the same delivery month, or covering a short sale of futures through the purchase of an equal number of contracts in the same delivery month. Either action cancels the obligation to make or take delivery of the underlying commodity or financial instrument.
Accounting: amount equaling or counterbalancing another amount on the opposite side of the same ledger or the ledger of another account.
Banking: legal right of a bank to seize deposit funds to cover a loan in default, called right of offset.
Printing: common printing method, in which an intermediate blanket cylinder is used to transfer an image from the image carrier to the target material (such as a piece of paper). Also called offset lithography.
Securities, commodities, options: (1) closing transaction involving the purchase or sale of an option having the same features as one already held. (2) hedge, such as the short sale of a stock to protect a capital gain.
the distance, in a computer memory, between one location and another. The offset of a data item is its address relative to the address of something else (0 if they are in the same position, 5 if they are 5 bytes apart, and so forth).
Accounting: (1) amount equaling or counterbalancing another amount on the opposite side of the same ledger or the ledger of another account. See also absorbed. (2) amount that cancels or reduces a claim.
Banking: (1) bank's legal right to seize deposit funds to cover a loan in default-called right of offset. (2) number stored on a bank card that, when related to the code number remembered by the cardholder, represents the depositor's identification number, called PAN-PIN pair.
Securities, commodities, options: (1) closing transaction involving the purchase or sale of an option having the same features as one already held. (2) hedge, such as the short sale of a stock to protect a capital gain or the purchase of a future to protect a commodity price, or a straddle representing the purchase of offsetting put and call options on a security.
