10 Dollars Foreign Exchange Certificate

Bank Polska Kasa Opieki — commonly known as Bank Pekao — issued these Foreign Exchange Certificates as part of Poland's hard currency management system under the communist government. The certificates allowed the state to capture dollars and other Western currencies brought in by Polish emigrants sending remittances home, without actually permitting free access to foreign exchange. Holders could spend them only at Pewex stores, the internal hard-currency retail chain that sold Western goods unavailable through normal socialist distribution.

The 1969 series was printed by the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) in Warsaw. Pewex receipts from this mechanism became, in practice, a parallel currency — often more desired than the złoty itself.