money order

money order (plural money orders)

1. (finance) A directive to pay a prespecified amount of money from prepaid funds, making it a more trusted method of payment than a check.
   • 1965, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia No. 51 - 1965, page 589,

     The issue of money orders and postal notes is regulated by sections 74-79 of the Post and Telegraph Act 1901—1961. The maximum amount for which a single money order payable within Australia may be obtained is £40, but additional orders will be issued upon request when larger amounts are to be remitted. The maximum amount permitted to be sent by any one person to a person or persons outside Australia is £A.10 a week. A postal note is not available for a sum larger than twenty shillings.

   • 2007, Gary B. Magee, Andrew S. Thompson, ‘Migrapounds’: Remittance Flows Within the British World, c. 1875—1913, Kate Darian-Smith, Patricia Grimshaw, Stuart Macintyre (editors), Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures, page 47,

     In the UK, a Money Order Office was formed in 1838, a separate and specialised department of the Royal Mail that had its origins in an officially sanctioned private business carried on from the late eighteenth century.⁹ […] By 1873, a reliable international money order service was in full operation between the United Kingdom and the majority of its colonies,¹⁰ as well as with a number of other countries, not least the USA.¹¹

   • 2009, Marsha Collier, EBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, page 390:

     I begin my discussion of payments with money orders and cashier′s checks because I think they′re just the greatest way to receive payment. Money orders and cashier′s checks are fast, cheap, and negotiable (just like cash).

• (money orders handled by post offices): postal note, postal order, post office order, postal money order
• (postal) remittance (slip)
• (postal) transfer (slip)
• (postal) pay-in slip

• postal money order

• banker's draft/banker's draught (UK), cashier's check (US)