The clearing-house is a comparatively modern institution, the
Edinburgh bankers claiming the credit of establishing the first one.
The earliest clearing-house of whose transactions we have any record
is that of London, founded about 1775. For fully seventy-five years
the London clearing-house and that of Edinburgh were the only
organisations of the kind known to exist. The monetary systems of most
European countries centring around one great national bank located at
the capital of each, found in this a means of effecting mercantile
settlements. The New York clearing-house was established in 1853, from
which date the American clearing-house system has grown to enormous
proportions. No country in the world has so large a need of
clearing-houses, for in no country is the bank cheque so generally
used in the payment of ordinary accounts.