Bill, a special kind of written promise to pay a debt made out according to a legalised form, which gives its bearer the unquestionable right to demand, on the expiry of a specified term, that the person who has signed the note pay the stated 29 sum of money. The bill emerged from the function of money as a means of payment. It began to be widely used as commercial credit developed in relations between industrial and merchant capitalists. There are promissory and transfer notes. The promissory note is a written promise issued by the debtor to the creditor. The transfer note is made out by the creditor and is his special written order to pay a sum of money stated in the note to a third person by the specified date. Alongside the banknote and cheque, the bill is a medium of circulation used in the capitalist credit system. In a developed banking system, transfer notes predominate; they are also used in international settlements. The capitalist who received a bill when he sold his commodity on credit can turn it into money by selling it prior to the specified date of payment. The bank which buys a bill for cash withdraws a discount rate from the sum specified by it as a discount or payment for the money it loans. When the bill is due for payment, the bank presents it to the person who has signed it. Under imperialism, when commercial credit is used less often than banking credit, the role of the bill in commercial circulation has become far less important than it was under pre-monopoly capitalism. In the USSR, bills were used at the initial stage of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in business between state and cooperative enterprises. The credit reform of 1930-31 abolished the circulation of bills. Today they are used by socialist countries only in foreign trade settlements with capitalist countries.