10 000 Shillings / 500 Pounds - George V

The East African Currency Board was established in 1919 to provide a unified currency across British East Africa, replacing the rupee-based system that had served the region since the Imperial British East Africa Company era. This 500 Pounds denomination — the highest in the series — was not retail currency. Notes of this value moved between government treasuries, large trading houses, and the banking sector, primarily along the Mombasa–Nairobi commercial corridor.

De La Rue produced the entire EACB series under secure contract arrangements standard to Crown colonial issues. The dual denomination labeling, shillings and pounds simultaneously, reflects the transitional monetary arithmetic of the florin-based East African shilling, fixed at 20 to the pound at introduction.