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The Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban was a French concessionary bank, its mandate extended repeatedly despite growing Arab nationalist pressure — this 1939 issue appeared as France was simultaneously managing Syrian independence negotiations and preparing for a war that would upend the entire Levantine monetary order. The note was printed in Paris by the Banque de France, which produced the series under tight metropolitan supervision rather than through any locally administered process.

Within two years of this issue, the fall of France and the subsequent Free French takeover of Syria complicated the note's legal standing considerably. The bank's concession was not finally terminated until 1956.