Wiktionary
n. (context finance English) Any form of funding medium, mostly those used for borrowing in money markets, including cash instruments and derivative instruments.
Wikipedia
Financial instruments are tradable assets of any kind. They can be cash, evidence of an ownership interest in an entity, or a contractual right to receive or deliver cash or another financial instrument.
International Accounting Standards IAS 32 and 39 define a financial instrument as "any contract that gives rise to a financial asset of one entity and a financial liability or equity instrument of another entity".
Usage examples of "financial instrument".
Unlike other forms of insurance--including whole life insurance, which is a far more complicated financial instrument--term life policies are fairly homogeneous: one thirty-year, guaranteed policy for $1 million is essentially identical to the next.