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A Loan provisioning is an expense that is reserved for default/bad performing loans/credits. It is an amount set aside in the event of that loans defaults. or It is an expense set aside as an allowance for bad loans or credits. Loan loss provision is also known as the "Valuation Allowance" or "Valuation Reserve".  It is also known as "Allowance for Loan Loss"                              

In any group of loans, banks (used to refer to all financial institutions) expect there can be some loans that do not perform as expected. These loans may be delinquent on their repayments or default the entire loan. This can create a loss to the bank on expected income. Therefore, banks can set aside a portion of the expected repayments from all loans in its portfolio to cover all or a portion of the loss. In the event of loss or in critical situations banks can use the amount set aside to cover the loss instead of taking a loss in its cash flow. This loan loss reserve acts as an internal insurance fund.

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Organization ABC estimates that 1% of loans amount that is $ 1000 will never comeback. So this $ 1000 is ABC organization's loan loss reserve and it records this amount as negative number on the asset portion of its balance sheet. If  If and when organization ABC decides to write all or a portion of a loan off, it will remove the loan from its asset balance and also remove the amount of the write-off from the loan loss reserve. The amount deducted from the loan loss reserve may be tax deductible for organization ABC.

How to define a Loan Provision:

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