a notional unit of exchange, conceived in 1979, based on a “basket,” or weighted combination, of the currencies of nations that belonged to the European Community. The principal currencies involved were the German mark, the French franc, the British pound sterling, and the Italian lira. The ecu was created by the European Community with the aim of eventually making it the single currency of a unified western European economy. It was increasingly used in commercial banking transactions because its relative stability rendered it more suitable than a national currency for fixing contractual terms. It was especially important in the international bond market, where it had become the second most widely used currency (after the U.S. dollar) by the early 1990s. In 1999 the ecu was replaced by the euro.