Clearing, the system of domestic and international written transactions for commercial and other operations based on accounting mutual demands and obligations. One should distinguish between bank and currency clearing. In bank clearings, which were first used in England in the middle of the 18th century, banks effect payments between each other based only on the difference between payment sums and money receipts. The development of clearing payments and the need for constant exchanges of payment documents led to the establishment of special institutions, which did the accounting of banks’ mutual demands—the so-called payment chambers. The first chamber of this kind was established in London in 1775. Bank clearings became most widespread in the epoch of state-monopoly capitalism, conditioned by the tremendous growth of cheque circulation. However, the periods of economic crises of overproduction create great problems with the system of written orders. Under socialism, bank clearing is one of the forms of written orders between enterprises and organisations in different economic sectors. Currency clearing establishes the pattern of international written orders for foreign trade and other economic ties between two or several countries. The most widespread is bilateral clearing. Payments between two countries are made from special accounts opened by their banks of issue or other institutions established especially for the purpose. Depending on the ways of paying off outstanding accounts, currency clearing can be subdivided into two forms. When clearing is done with inconvertible balances, the liability is cleared by commodities, and under clearing with convertible balances it is paid totally or in a certain per cent by gold or convertible currency. Clearing as a form of international settlements is used by the socialist countries. Its main feature is that it is planned. In 1957 the CMEA member countries signed an agreement on multilateral clearing. The sum total of payments for each country for the corresponding year should equal the sum total of its receipts from other countries, in other words, the equality of balances of payments between a given country and all the other countries should be ensured. Since 1964 payments between CMEA member countries have been concluded within the framework of multilateral settlements in transferable roubles through the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC). The comprehensive programme of socialist economic integration envisages further improvements in the system of multilateral clearing.