10 Francs

The Banque du Congo Belge continued issuing notes from London after Belgium fell to Germany in May 1940 — the colonial banking apparatus relocated alongside the Belgian government-in-exile, and Waterlow & Sons handled production throughout the occupation years. This P#14 series was the result: notes for a colony whose metropole had ceased to function as a sovereign state.

Congo's mineral wealth, particularly uranium from Shinkolobwe, made the colony strategically critical to the Allies during this period, which partly explains why maintaining a functioning colonial currency was treated as a serious wartime priority rather than an administrative afterthought.