1865

Launch of the first cheques in France

English bankers first issued cheques in 1742: they were no longer allowed to issue bank­notes as the Bank of England held a monopoly over issuance, so they created a new form of paper money.

In France, the first cheques were issued in 1826 by the Banque de France; these were called « blank man­dates », and allowed cus­tomers of the Bank to withdraw funds from their own accounts. Cheques as we know them today were created under the law of 1865, and sub­sequent laws were passed spe­cifying their terms of use: in 1911, for example, a law was intro­duced cre­ating the crossed cheque (which can only be paid into a bank account); in 1917 and 1926, it became an offence to write a cheque without suf­fi­cient funds; and in 1931 inter­na­tional legis­lation on cheques was harmonised.