Commercial bills

In the early part of the nineteenth century bills were widely used in the United Kingdom as a method of obtaining credit, primarily in the financing of domestic trade, and discounting bills was the chief method of bank lending. In the second half of the century the relative importance of bill finance in internal trade declined as that of the bank overdraft grew, but the decline coincided with a substantial increase in international trade, in particular the overseas trade of the United Kingdom, which was to a large extent financed through bills.

Commercial bills