A Call for Cheque Out?

In 1987, Australian tennis player Pat Cash triumphed at Wimbledon, defeating Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia in the final.

- Saptarshi Roy Bardhan

The Sun Sentinel, a Florida newspaper, ran a clever headline: “CASH BETTER THAN CZECH”, playing on Cash’s name and Lendl’s nationality. While the pun made for a witty headline, today it could well reflect a deeper truth—cash is indeed outperforming cheques in the modern financial ecosystem.

The Bank of England printed the first cheque in 1717, pioneering the use of pre-printed forms on special “cheque paper” designed to prevent fraud. Back then, there were no cheque books—customers had to collect a numbered form in person, fill it out, and return it to the bank for settlement.

By around 1770, the first bankers’ clearing house was established in London. Until then, bank clerks manually exchanged cheques by visiting every other bank, tallying balances informally.

The clearing house streamlined this process. Clerks would meet at the Five Bells Tavern on Lombard Street to exchange all cheques in one place and settle accounts—laying the foundation for the modern clearing system.