The Eurocheque was a type of cheque used in Europe that was accepted across national borders and which could be written in a variety of currencies. Eurocheques were originally introduced in 1969 as an alternative to the traveler's cheque and for international payments for goods and services. They were rapidly adopted for domestic use in a number of countries, to the extent that their use for international payment rarely accounted for more than 5% of total Eurocheque transactions. The charges for clearing Eurocheques were substantially lower than those for cross-border use of domestic cheques.