Checkbook
A blast from the past...checkbooks are little books or folders that hold checks, which are paper promissory notes that people can write out. Yes, written on the skin of dead trees. Paper. Checks were the ancient method of paying for things without cash. Before Paypal, before credit cards got super easy to get and to use, people used checks.
Checks are linked to bank accounts and when cashed, the amount is withdrawn from the account. The idea is similar to a debit card (actually debit cards are more modern versions of checks, but we'll deal with this looking backward in time), but it takes longer to process and involves paper.
In the old days, before the banks did all the math for you online, you had to "balance" your checkbook. Balancing the checkbook was the process of subtracting all the written checks or other debits, and adding all the deposits, into the account balance. Yes, you did it by hand, writing numbers and doing math using a pen or pencil in a little book of lined paper included in the checkbook.
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Finance: What is a CUSIP Number?119 Views
Finance, a la shmoop. What is a CUSIP number? Close that's a Cusack number
867-53-09, yeah we know there. So yeah you know when you go to the grocery
store and the cashier swipes your apples eight times across that little bar code [Apple being scanned]
reader thingy and it doesn't work again and again and again and then she finally [Error coming up on the screen]
pulls back the plastic from where the Apple was tagged hunts for her glasses [Cashier putting on her glasses]
and then visually finds the number associated with that Apple and then just
manually types it in. Well that's the fruit equivalent of a CUSIP number [Guy talking in a supermarket]
A CUSIP number is well just that only applied to securities, stocks, bonds even
muni bonds. CUSIP stands for committee on uniforms security identification [The meaning of each letter is shown]
procedures, and is basically just the serial number system of securities, but [CUSIP definition written on a 100 dollar bill]
has nine digits, the first six represent the original issuer of the security like
coca-cola shares when it went public a gazillion years ago. Then the next two [The fix 6 digits are highlighted]
characters refer to that type of security at hand like is it a basic
equity bond, muni bond and the ninth digit is riboflavin yeah it's just there
to be sure the other digits are all accurate and assures that there's no [The 3 digits meaning are shown]
replication in any of the other CUSIP index number sets. So yeah CUSIP numbers
make the securities easier to track because it's awfully hard to get a
microchip into one of them. [Microchip pulled out of a bond certificate]
Up Next
You've seen routing numbers on checks before, but what do they actually do? Hit play to find out.