<p>The terms would be &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_money" rel="nofollow noreferrer">near money</a>&quot; or &quot;quasi money&quot; in my opinion. However, I doubt that will help you much. Your example of &quot;Count of Monte Cristo&quot; goes back to at least the <a href="https://academic.kellogg.edu/williamsjon/Hammurabi.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Code of Hammurabi</a> (Ancient Mesopotamia), which predates coinage.</p>
<p>I am not sure what your interest is, but seem it is simply financing of international trade? Some examples in Hammurabi discuss merchants who engaged in international trade.</p>
<p>I do not think searching for a single category will help you much. Using a non economics example; if you are interested in hash tables / has maps (which is the common name for it), you are better of trying to google for a Dictionary if you want to get the best results for Python. I have not read it, but I suspect if you read <a href="http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/contents.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">History of Money</a> by Glyn Davies, you will have a good idea of what was available at what period. If you do not care about Ancient Mesopotamia or Ptolemaic loans, you could skip right to the parts you deem interesting.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-17T17:18:16.523Z
That might get something going. OTOH money and coinage isn't really the point I'm after. More the back end accounting process. How do/did banks transfer money from cash accounts in one bank to cash accounts in another while maintaining sufficient reserves? -- The end goal is a world building project: what will interstellar banking look like when some round trip communications take hours to weeks or more?
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-17T01:07:02.610Z
2022-01-17T01:07:02.610Z
AKdemy
<p>You are still asking for two things: a term, and how international money transfers work. The term seems to be &quot;<em>credit</em>&quot; or &quot;<em>establishing a line of credit</em>&quot;.</p>
<p>On how transfers of value work: Credit works because of trust. Some measures are used to establish this trust, but there is a lot of variation in this. It is also possible to call to collect the debt.</p>
<p>An extreme example is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Yapese money</a>, where money existed but the owners agreed not to move the money (huge stone circles) around, they rather just remembered which unit belonged to whom.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:15:16.040Z
1) While I'd welcome information on the topic, "please give me a 1500+ year history lesson" seems like the wrong kind of question for here, and one I can answer on my own... if I can find sources. 2) "Credit" is something else. The processes I'm wanting to learn about would be needed even if there was no credit being offered and all transfers are between cash accounts.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:36:22.750Z
@BCS You write "*There is a bit in The Count of Monte Cristo where Dantes pulls out a letter of credit from his bank in another country/city and give it to a local banker.*" So exactly how far back do you want to go, if 1500 years is too much, but Monte Cristo is fine? Also, if you are not asking about credit, then I still do not understand your question.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:54:50.837Z
My guess is the history I'm looking for goes back 1000-1500 years. **I'm not asking for anyone to give me that history here.** It would be way to long. What I want is something I can search for to find some articles or essays that have already been written.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T08:02:29.110Z
2022-01-10T08:02:29.110Z
Giskard
<p>I do not think there is any specific term for it within economics. The general term for the means of financial transactions is just: <em>communication</em>.</p>
<p>A transaction is simply by <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/transaction.asp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">definition</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A transaction is a completed agreement between a buyer and a seller to exchange goods, services, or financial assets in return for money.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And financial transaction just further qualifies that money or financial assets are involved in the the transaction.</p>
<p>So any financial transaction is done with some means of communication, since any agreement requires some communication to occur. People exchanging tally sticks, clay tablets, pieces of paper, sending messages by telegram later by internet etc.</p>
<p>If you want to review history of how people made transactions you will want to read some books about history of finance. Any book about history of finance will talk about what was used to conduct the financial agreements.</p>
<p>My two recommendations are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ferguson The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World</li>
<li>Cassis, Y., Grossman, R. S., &amp; Schenk, C. R. (Eds.). (2016). The Oxford handbook of banking and financial history. Oxford University Press.</li>
</ul>
<p>The first book is good casual read, it describes finance from antiquity and also describes the ways how transactions were done (e.g. clay tablets, systems of couriers etc). It does not go into too much detail though because it is book written for lay audience.</p>
<p>The second book is much more rigorous and if you like to get into the weeds more interesting, but if you do not like academic books you won't like it.  Also this one does not go as far back, it starts from medieval times and focuses more heavily on the West.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T02:06:01.950Z
There may not be a term :-(. -- OTOH, if I'm reading you correctly, the "communication" you are taking about is setting up and agreeing to conduct a transaction. More or less everything up thought the proverbial "the check's in the mail" stage. Well, the stage I'm interested in is the bits starting just after the bank teller accepts the check for deposit and continuing thought clearing transfers between banks that don't share a central bank, or where/when there were no central banks.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T02:22:18.943Z
@BCS well that happens by reading some communication. Financial transaction are mainly about exchanges of information. For example, simplified financial transaction is bank A sends information to bank B to debit account of person X after they credited account of person Y
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:07:04.933Z
okay, but them what? The point you stopped at is where my interest **starts**. Where does the money that appears in person Y's account come from? Where does the money that was debited out of person X's go? They can play the same game as with deposits and loans, but that only goes so far before they run into reserve limits or the like. Eventually the money has to come from somewhere. E.g. say a bank is getting a lot of international checks deposited and then withdrawn as cash. How do they keep getting more cash?
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:16:11.697Z
@BCS 1. Some of what you describe is no longer part of financial transaction, you are now asking what happened before the financial transaction. Before the financial transaction person A had to get some money deposit for example deposit money from his work. 2. If bank needs cash they will just ask Fed to send more cash to them and Fed can make orders for new notes at treasury bureau of engraving and printing. In the past cash would be moved between banks as well but now that most money is electronic the amount of cash is so minuscule that is no longer necessary
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:38:00.797Z
@BCS "*E.g. say a bank is getting a lot of international checks deposited and then withdrawn as cash. How do they keep getting more cash?*" Seems like you are asking about international finance! Or possibly the engineering question of how many banknotes one can fit into an armored cash transport car...
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:40:46.223Z
1. I'm explicitly not asking about that bit; that the person sending the money has it to send and that the banks are to accept the transfer are to be taken as already established, by necessity, before the bit I'm interested in even starts. 2. and IIRC the central bank (The Fed is strictly US after all) debits that banks account at the central bank for the cash. What happens when that account runs dry? If the banks the deposited checks came from use the same central bank, that's not a big deal; what about where they don't uses the same one? Or what was done before central banks became a thing?
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:44:40.437Z
@Giskard I'm not asking about physical logistics but rather how do you convince someone to load the cash on that armored car in the first place? Or maybe; what dictates how much cash a given bank can ask for and by what mechanism does that connect to deposit from banks in other countries?
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:49:04.163Z
@BCS banks can always get extra money from central bank, central banks are the lenders of last resort. If central bank would not be willing to supply cash to private bank then when the accounts dries out bank would simply default. Btw none of this is about financial transactions, if you are not interested in financial transactions but in central banks role of lender of last resort you should ask question about that
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:49:59.073Z
@BCS I still think you are asking about the mechanics of how and why "credit" exists.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T16:53:06.130Z
@Giskard after the back and forth I don't think the OP knows what she/he wants to ask about because clarifying questions are all over the place, I guess this question needs details and clarity
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:00:53.697Z
I know exactly what I want, but I don't know how to describe it. Unfortunately, this is a case where knowing how to clearly describe the question would remove my need to ask it as I could do the research on my own. (Imagine someone who has seen a car and wants to read up on how they work but doesn't know any of the terms used to describe them.)
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:05:04.403Z
@Giskard what definition of credit are you using? I know of two off hand: "placing money into an account" and "an open offer to loan money". The first exist in every monetary transaction making it way too broad; most things I will find searching for that will not be useful. The second doesn't apply because banks settling things up is still needed even without that.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:08:39.237Z
Re central banks being lenders of last resort: where does the money to replay the loan come from when the depots being made good come from a different central bank? -- And again, I'm not asking for the answer to that question but rather the name of the topic that deals with the answers to that sort of question.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:11:39.497Z
@BCS what do you mean from different central bank? Every country (or monetary union) has its own central bank. Central banks can create money ex nihilo
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:26:30.260Z
A check written on an account at the First Bank of Elbonia is deposed into an account at the Third Bank of Poyais. What is the name for the system those banks use to settle up? Clearly ForEx has something to do with it, but it's not all of it.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:34:16.220Z
@BCS generally you can’t just open account in foreign currency at a local bank. Some might allow it but regularly just people on forex market buy one or the other currency but this is again entirely different topic
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:39:20.753Z
IIRC a lot of banks will allow you deposit a transaction in one currency into an account in another currency. I suspect they do so by some slight of hand involving ForEx, exchange rates and the like. The **name** for that type of slight of hand is likely a good chunk of what I'm looking for.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:40:21.513Z
@BCS you do not deposit transaction, you open deposit accounts and then transaction moves funds from that account
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:48:40.370Z
Please forgive me if I'm misusing terms. -- What is the general term for "something that causes money to show up in an account"? You can wire transfer into an account, you can depots a check, or deposit cash? Is there a general term for all of those and another others I've missed? Regardless of which means is used, the end effect (as far as it pertains to my interest) is the same so I'd rather not inadvertently imply I'm only interested in one form of action.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T17:51:37.683Z
@BCS there is no general term, as I put forward in my answer what *causes* the numbers change is ultimately one institution *communicating* to other institution that your and someone else's balances on the respective accounts changed. That is why Montecristo pulls letter of credit, that is why in Mesopotamia curriers would present clay tablets, that is why modern banks send electric signals using bits
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T01:41:05.157Z
2022-01-10T01:51:35.040Z
2022-01-10T01:51:35.040Z
1muflon1
<p>I'm looking for a term (say &quot;X&quot;) that describes a general category of process. Over time, the details of the process or even the process it self changes, but they would all still fall under the term. &quot;How did 'X' change with the introduction of the telegraph?&quot;.</p>
<p>I'm interested in the mechanics of what happens when (and more so; after) a person in one country transfers money to someone in another country. What are all the gory details? An example of the sort of details I'm thinking of; There is a bit in The Count of Monte Cristo where Dantes pulls out a letter of credit from his bank in another country/city and give it to a local banker. This implies that that sort of interment was a common means of transferring value at that time. (Presumably with a transfer of notes or bullion to balance things up after the fact.) If I was willing to limit by interest to a single country and only concern myself with checks the term &quot;check clearing house; history there of&quot; would likely be the answer, but my interest is a &quot;bit&quot; more global.</p>
<p>The best answer I know of is &quot;international finance&quot;, however the majority of the result I get when searching for that (having more to do with markets and regulations and the like) are unrelated to what I need to know, and as a result rendering it nearly useless to me.</p>
<hr />
<p>Ultimately I'm looking for a good history of the subject. Preferable starting around about where the whole subject just started to get more complex that &quot;physically transport some commodity from person A to person B&quot;. (If anyone knows of such a history... ?) My hope is that if I can find a term that refers to what I'm interested in, and doesn't get swamped with stuff I'm not, that I can go find the rest on my own.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-09T09:54:37.323Z
Hi! I am not a downvoter, and I agree that **they should have left a comment**. Your question is unclear. It seems like you are looking for a term that covers the means for conducting transactions from the iron age to the present age. But these means have gone through considerable change during this long time period; it is unlikely a single word will cover all. Perhaps post a new question asking about the history of international finance, or international trade? Not sure if this is what you are after - the question is unclear.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-09T15:00:54.077Z
I'm also not a downvoter, but was very confused on reading "mean" in your title, which to  me suggests "average".  You might like to edit it to "means" if that would reflect your intentions.
Adam Bailey
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T00:03:57.693Z
balance of payments maybe?
ChinG
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T00:28:46.943Z
@AdamBailey damn autocorrect :o(
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T00:51:53.077Z
@Giskard See edit to question. -- International finance/trade are the thing I'm *not* trying to study but which every search term I've tried wants to tell me about. IIRC trade is goods and finance is things like loans. -- I'm not looking for the term for a specific means/process but more the category of all of them. E.g. "currency" not "USD".  -- Also, I though packing around physical wealth dominated for at least a few centuries AD, well past the end of the iron age?
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T00:57:13.353Z
@ChinG BoP seems to be somewhat related as what I'm asking about is what allows a BoP to be non-zero, but BoP is just a metric.
BCS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-10T01:47:27.337Z
I edited out the request for feedback from your question, you already have a comment that I upvoted so it is more visible. Questions should not have unrelated info. I know its not polite when someone downvotes you and does not explain it, I also hate it but you should not put it in the question.
1muflon1
<international-economics><economic-terms>
What is the term for the means of conducting international financial transactions?
BCS
# What is the term for the means of conducting international financial transactions?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-01-09)

I'm looking for a term (say "X") that describes a general category of process. Over time, the details of the process or even the process it self changes, but they would all still fall under the term. "How did 'X' change with the introduction of the telegraph?".

I'm interested in the mechanics of what happens when (and more so; after) a person in one country transfers money to someone in another country. What are all the gory details? An example of the sort of details I'm thinking of; There is a bit in The Count of Monte Cristo where Dantes pulls out a letter of credit from his bank in another country/city and give it to a local banker. This implies that that sort of interment was a common means of transferring value at that time. (Presumably with a transfer of notes or bullion to balance things up after the fact.) If I was willing to limit by interest to a single country and only concern myself with checks the term "check clearing house; history there of" would likely be the answer, but my interest is a "bit" more global.

The best answer I know of is "international finance", however the majority of the result I get when searching for that (having more to do with markets and regulations and the like) are unrelated to what I need to know, and as a result rendering it nearly useless to me.

---

Ultimately I'm looking for a good history of the subject. Preferable starting around about where the whole subject just started to get more complex that "physically transport some commodity from person A to person B". (If anyone knows of such a history... ?) My hope is that if I can find a term that refers to what I'm interested in, and doesn't get swamped with stuff I'm not, that I can go find the rest on my own.

**Tags:** international-economics, economic-terms

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Hi! I am not a downvoter, and I agree that **they should have left a comment**. Your question is unclear. It seems like you are looking for a term that covers the means for conducting transactions from the iron age to the present age. But these means have gone through considerable change during this long time period; it is unlikely a single word will cover all. Perhaps post a new question asking about the history of international finance, or international trade? Not sure if this is what you are after - the question is unclear.  
> **username_2**: I'm also not a downvoter, but was very confused on reading "mean" in your title, which to  me suggests "average".  You might like to edit it to "means" if that would reflect your intentions.  
> **username_3**: balance of payments maybe?  
> **username_0**: @username_2 damn autocorrect :o(  
> **username_0**: @username_1 See edit to question. -- International finance/trade are the thing I'm *not* trying to study but which every search term I've tried wants to tell me about. IIRC trade is goods and finance is things like loans. -- I'm not looking for the term for a specific means/process but more the category of all of them. E.g. "currency" not "USD".  -- Also, I though packing around physical wealth dominated for at least a few centuries AD, well past the end of the iron age?  
> **username_0**: @username_3 BoP seems to be somewhat related as what I'm asking about is what allows a BoP to be non-zero, but BoP is just a metric.  
> **username_4**: I edited out the request for feedback from your question, you already have a comment that I upvoted so it is more visible. Questions should not have unrelated info. I know its not polite when someone downvotes you and does not explain it, I also hate it but you should not put it in the question.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2022-01-17. Score: 2

The terms would be "[near money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_money)" or "quasi money" in my opinion. However, I doubt that will help you much. Your example of "Count of Monte Cristo" goes back to at least the [Code of Hammurabi](https://academic.kellogg.edu/williamsjon/Hammurabi.htm) (Ancient Mesopotamia), which predates coinage.

I am not sure what your interest is, but seem it is simply financing of international trade? Some examples in Hammurabi discuss merchants who engaged in international trade.

I do not think searching for a single category will help you much. Using a non economics example; if you are interested in hash tables / has maps (which is the common name for it), you are better of trying to google for a Dictionary if you want to get the best results for Python. I have not read it, but I suspect if you read [History of Money](http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/contents.html) by Glyn Davies, you will have a good idea of what was available at what period. If you do not care about Ancient Mesopotamia or Ptolemaic loans, you could skip right to the parts you deem interesting.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: That might get something going. OTOH money and coinage isn't really the point I'm after. More the back end accounting process. How do/did banks transfer money from cash accounts in one bank to cash accounts in another while maintaining sufficient reserves? -- The end goal is a world building project: what will interstellar banking look like when some round trip communications take hours to weeks or more?  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-01-10. Score: 0

You are still asking for two things: a term, and how international money transfers work. The term seems to be "*credit*" or "*establishing a line of credit*".

On how transfers of value work: Credit works because of trust. Some measures are used to establish this trust, but there is a lot of variation in this. It is also possible to call to collect the debt.

An extreme example is [Yapese money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones), where money existed but the owners agreed not to move the money (huge stone circles) around, they rather just remembered which unit belonged to whom.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: 1) While I'd welcome information on the topic, "please give me a 1500+ year history lesson" seems like the wrong kind of question for here, and one I can answer on my own... if I can find sources. 2) "Credit" is something else. The processes I'm wanting to learn about would be needed even if there was no credit being offered and all transfers are between cash accounts.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 You write "*There is a bit in The Count of Monte Cristo where Dantes pulls out a letter of credit from his bank in another country/city and give it to a local banker.*" So exactly how far back do you want to go, if 1500 years is too much, but Monte Cristo is fine? Also, if you are not asking about credit, then I still do not understand your question.  
> **username_0**: My guess is the history I'm looking for goes back 1000-1500 years. **I'm not asking for anyone to give me that history here.** It would be way to long. What I want is something I can search for to find some articles or essays that have already been written.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2022-01-10. Score: 0

I do not think there is any specific term for it within economics. The general term for the means of financial transactions is just: *communication*.

A transaction is simply by [definition](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/transaction.asp):

> A transaction is a completed agreement between a buyer and a seller to exchange goods, services, or financial assets in return for money.

And financial transaction just further qualifies that money or financial assets are involved in the the transaction.

So any financial transaction is done with some means of communication, since any agreement requires some communication to occur. People exchanging tally sticks, clay tablets, pieces of paper, sending messages by telegram later by internet etc.

If you want to review history of how people made transactions you will want to read some books about history of finance. Any book about history of finance will talk about what was used to conduct the financial agreements.

My two recommendations are:

* Ferguson The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
* Cassis, Y., Grossman, R. S., & Schenk, C. R. (Eds.). (2016). The Oxford handbook of banking and financial history. Oxford University Press.

The first book is good casual read, it describes finance from antiquity and also describes the ways how transactions were done (e.g. clay tablets, systems of couriers etc). It does not go into too much detail though because it is book written for lay audience.

The second book is much more rigorous and if you like to get into the weeds more interesting, but if you do not like academic books you won't like it. Also this one does not go as far back, it starts from medieval times and focuses more heavily on the West.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: There may not be a term :-(. -- OTOH, if I'm reading you correctly, the "communication" you are taking about is setting up and agreeing to conduct a transaction. More or less everything up thought the proverbial "the check's in the mail" stage. Well, the stage I'm interested in is the bits starting just after the bank teller accepts the check for deposit and continuing thought clearing transfers between banks that don't share a central bank, or where/when there were no central banks.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 well that happens by reading some communication. Financial transaction are mainly about exchanges of information. For example, simplified financial transaction is bank A sends information to bank B to debit account of person X after they credited account of person Y  
> **username_0**: okay, but them what? The point you stopped at is where my interest **starts**. Where does the money that appears in person Y's account come from? Where does the money that was debited out of person X's go? They can play the same game as with deposits and loans, but that only goes so far before they run into reserve limits or the like. Eventually the money has to come from somewhere. E.g. say a bank is getting a lot of international checks deposited and then withdrawn as cash. How do they keep getting more cash?  
> **username_4**: @username_0 1. Some of what you describe is no longer part of financial transaction, you are now asking what happened before the financial transaction. Before the financial transaction person A had to get some money deposit for example deposit money from his work. 2. If bank needs cash they will just ask Fed to send more cash to them and Fed can make orders for new notes at treasury bureau of engraving and printing. In the past cash would be moved between banks as well but now that most money is electronic the amount of cash is so minuscule that is no longer necessary  
> **username_1**: @username_0 "*E.g. say a bank is getting a lot of international checks deposited and then withdrawn as cash. How do they keep getting more cash?*" Seems like you are asking about international finance! Or possibly the engineering question of how many banknotes one can fit into an armored cash transport car...  
> **username_0**: 1. I'm explicitly not asking about that bit; that the person sending the money has it to send and that the banks are to accept the transfer are to be taken as already established, by necessity, before the bit I'm interested in even starts. 2. and IIRC the central bank (The Fed is strictly US after all) debits that banks account at the central bank for the cash. What happens when that account runs dry? If the banks the deposited checks came from use the same central bank, that's not a big deal; what about where they don't uses the same one? Or what was done before central banks became a thing?  
> **username_0**: @username_1 I'm not asking about physical logistics but rather how do you convince someone to load the cash on that armored car in the first place? Or maybe; what dictates how much cash a given bank can ask for and by what mechanism does that connect to deposit from banks in other countries?  
> **username_4**: @username_0 banks can always get extra money from central bank, central banks are the lenders of last resort. If central bank would not be willing to supply cash to private bank then when the accounts dries out bank would simply default. Btw none of this is about financial transactions, if you are not interested in financial transactions but in central banks role of lender of last resort you should ask question about that  
> **username_1**: @username_0 I still think you are asking about the mechanics of how and why "credit" exists.  
> **username_4**: @username_1 after the back and forth I don't think the OP knows what she/he wants to ask about because clarifying questions are all over the place, I guess this question needs details and clarity  
> **username_0**: I know exactly what I want, but I don't know how to describe it. Unfortunately, this is a case where knowing how to clearly describe the question would remove my need to ask it as I could do the research on my own. (Imagine someone who has seen a car and wants to read up on how they work but doesn't know any of the terms used to describe them.)  
> **username_0**: @username_1 what definition of credit are you using? I know of two off hand: "placing money into an account" and "an open offer to loan money". The first exist in every monetary transaction making it way too broad; most things I will find searching for that will not be useful. The second doesn't apply because banks settling things up is still needed even without that.  
> **username_0**: Re central banks being lenders of last resort: where does the money to replay the loan come from when the depots being made good come from a different central bank? -- And again, I'm not asking for the answer to that question but rather the name of the topic that deals with the answers to that sort of question.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 what do you mean from different central bank? Every country (or monetary union) has its own central bank. Central banks can create money ex nihilo  
> **username_0**: A check written on an account at the First Bank of Elbonia is deposed into an account at the Third Bank of Poyais. What is the name for the system those banks use to settle up? Clearly ForEx has something to do with it, but it's not all of it.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 generally you can’t just open account in foreign currency at a local bank. Some might allow it but regularly just people on forex market buy one or the other currency but this is again entirely different topic  
> **username_0**: IIRC a lot of banks will allow you deposit a transaction in one currency into an account in another currency. I suspect they do so by some slight of hand involving ForEx, exchange rates and the like. The **name** for that type of slight of hand is likely a good chunk of what I'm looking for.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 you do not deposit transaction, you open deposit accounts and then transaction moves funds from that account  
> **username_0**: Please forgive me if I'm misusing terms. -- What is the general term for "something that causes money to show up in an account"? You can wire transfer into an account, you can depots a check, or deposit cash? Is there a general term for all of those and another others I've missed? Regardless of which means is used, the end effect (as far as it pertains to my interest) is the same so I'd rather not inadvertently imply I'm only interested in one form of action.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 there is no general term, as I put forward in my answer what *causes* the numbers change is ultimately one institution *communicating* to other institution that your and someone else's balances on the respective accounts changed. That is why Montecristo pulls letter of credit, that is why in Mesopotamia curriers would present clay tablets, that is why modern banks send electric signals using bits  

---

