We analyze the impact of language on risk-taking behavior of banks. Our hypothesis is that strong future time reference (FTR) languages, i.e., languages that grammatically distinguish between present and future events, lead banks to take more risk. We analyze the relationship between future tense form of the language and bank risk using a sample of 1,402 from 82 countries over the 2010-2017 period. We find that strong FTR banks take more risk in accordance with our prediction. This finding is robust to the inclusion of alternative culture indicators, to alternative definitions of bank risk and of future time reference.