1 Cent Japanese Occupation

Issued for occupied Malaya and Borneo following the rapid Japanese advance through Southeast Asia in early 1942, this note was part of the "banana money" series — so called by locals who resented the near-worthless scrip the occupying administration forced into circulation as a substitute for Straits dollar coinage. The Japanese military government printed these in Japan and shipped them in bulk, with no serial numbers on the lower denominations, a deliberate cost-cutting measure that made counterfeiting trivially easy.

By 1945, hyperinflation had rendered the entire series economically useless. Surrender made it officially worthless overnight.