1 Pataca

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino's Macau branch relied on Lisbon-directed printing throughout the colonial period, and this 1945 issue came off the presses at Litografia Nacional in Porto — a domestic Portuguese printer rather than one of the London security printers more commonly associated with colonial currency of this era. The choice reflects wartime disruption to normal supply chains; access to Bradbury Wilkinson or Waterlow was considerably complicated by the mid-1940s.

Macau's nominal neutrality during the Japanese occupation of surrounding territories gave the pataca an unusual stability for a colonial currency in the region, though the local economy was under considerable informal pressure through 1945.