Commercial Paper

a short-term debt security.

To be commercial paper, a security must have a maturity of less than one year in Europe and less than 270 days in the US. But most commercial paper (also known as CP) is for much shorter maturities – sometimes as short as 7 or 14 days.

With such short maturities, CP is usually treated by investors as a cash equivalent.

CP is issued by corporations but also by asset backed commercial paper conduits.