Per David Graeber in "Debt: The First 5000 Years", people used to record debt with "Tally Sticks". You'd notch the debt you owed at the end of a branch. Then you'd bend it in half. Creditor would get one end. Debtor the other. When you wanted to call in your debt, you'd hold the sticks up together to confirm they matched and that's what was owed. This practice goes back to the Paleolithic Era.

Incidentally, the Tally Stick would often be longer on the creditor's end. This was the stock of the stick and thus designated its recipient the "stock holder".

But assignment and collection of debts isn't the same thing as assignment and collection of rents and interest, which is at the center of the capitalist economic system.