1 Piastre

Printed locally in Hanoi under Japanese occupation, this note exists because the wartime severance of sea routes made it impossible to import currency from metropolitan France. The Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient — a commercial press, not a security printer — was pressed into producing circulating currency under conditions it was never designed for, which is why paper quality and ink consistency vary noticeably across the series.

Trần Tấn Lộc's involvement as designer is one of the few instances in the Banque de l'Indochine's history where a Vietnamese artist received a formal credit on an issued note.