1 Piastre Law of 23 May AH1332

The Düyun-u Umumiye — the Ottoman Public Debt Administration — was not a bank but a foreign creditor body established in 1881 to manage repayment of the empire's defaulted external debt, with revenues from several tax streams assigned directly to it. That it ended up issuing emergency fractional currency during the First World War reflects how severely the regular banking apparatus had collapsed under wartime conditions.

The AH1332 law date corresponds to 1914 in the Gregorian calendar, though physical issue of these 1-piastre notes came later. Small-denomination paper of this type circulated heavily among civilian populations where coin had entirely disappeared from daily trade.