A year or two back the annual number of cheques processed in the UK was just over five million. Not annually but daily!
Nevertheless, we are digressing. We need to return to our story, now unraveling nearly two and a half centuries ago. Until about 1770 the collection of cheques in London, which by then had currently become the world's premier financial centre, was pretty much an casual, tiresome affair. Each mid-day staffs from each of the loads of London banks would set out sandstone sales with a leather bag tucked under their arms. In the bags were the cheques that had actually been deposited with their banks drawn on all the other London banks.
They would certainly trek from one financial institution to one more, via rainfall and also via mud, in summer and winter months. At each financial institution they would present the cheques that had been deposited with them for collection as well as would certainly get in exchange money settlement for the things provided. When needed they would likewise take distribution of cheques made use of themselves and deposited at these various other financial institutions, keeping a tally of equilibriums in between them and the various other financial institution up until they settled with each other. This dreary laborious trudge from one bank to an additional would certainly commonly take the best part of each afternoon. On their return the cash money gotten in settlement of those cheques would certainly be balanced up. Life was without a doubt difficult.
And after that it occurred! A stimulate of innovation flashed across the mind of among those fatigued staffs. Who it was, is not known, however he had a real brainwave, possibly driven by thoughts of exactly how to enhance his free time or resolve his nerves with that additional pint of ale.
The logic was basic. If the clerks can all fulfill at a set time at a single place, they might transact their service, each with the various other in a portion of the time as well as without the requirement to stroll miles as well as miles to lots of banks. They started doing this by arranging to satisfy everyday at the 5 Bells, a tavern in Lombard Street in the City of London, to exchange all their cheques in one place as well as settle the balances in cash money. In the spirit of the effectiveness gained they can maximise their recreation and drinking time - which they without delay did, a lot to the fulfillment of the regional publican. An included benefit was that all this now occurred out of the cool and the wet and the grief.