1 Cent Foreign Exchange Certificate

Pewex — the state-run hard currency retail network — underpinned the entire reason these certificates existed. Poles with access to Western currency were required to exchange it at Pekao's official counters, receiving these certificates in return, which could then be spent in Pewex stores on imported goods unavailable through normal socialist retail channels. The 1-cent denomination is the lowest in the 1969 series, useful for making change in a system that needed to function like a parallel economy without actually being one.

The certificates were non-convertible back into foreign currency, which was entirely the point — the state captured the hard currency and retained control of it.