With the development of commodity economy, the concrete expression of the essence of money is gradually improved. Commodity exchange has gradually changed from barter exchange to commodity circulation (that is, commodity exchange with money as the medium). This is the premise of the existence of the basic function of money.
In the developed commodity economy, it has five functions: value scale, circulation means, storage means, payment means and world currency. Among them, the most basic functions are value scale and circulation means.
The function of money as a means of payment is to meet the needs of commodity production and commodity exchange development. Because commodity transactions are originally paid in cash. However, due to the different production time of various commodities, some are longer, some are shorter, and some are seasonal.
At the same time, the sales time of various commodities is also different. Some goods are sold locally, and the sales time is short. Some goods need to be transported to other places and sold for a long time. The difference between production and sales time makes some commodity producers need to buy some goods on credit from other commodity producers before their own goods are produced or sold.
The transfer of goods is divorced from the realization of price in time, that is, the phenomenon of credit purchase appears. After credit purchase, when the debt is paid off on the agreed date, money will perform the function of payment means. Money, as a means of payment, was initially caused by the credit purchase and prepayment of commodities, and then gradually extended to outside the field of commodity circulation. In the capitalist society with developed commodity exchange and credit, it has increasingly become a common transaction mode.