Monetary means of transaction at first beat the traditional barter trade. However, as time went by, the thought of carrying a ponderous pouch of coins for shopping appeared not only troublesome but thieves attracting. Hence, the Greek and Roman traders who bought goods from people faraway cities, invented checks to solve the problem. Not only are paper checks easy to carry around, they discouraged robbery as these checks can only be used by the person whose name is printed on the notes. Following this idea, banks later issued notes in exchange for gold deposited with them. These bank notes can then be used as cash. Finally, governments of today adopted the idea and began to print paper money, backed by gold for the country's use.