10 Pounds Clydesdale Bank

Clydesdale Bank notes circulate as legal currency in Scotland under the terms of the Bankers' Note (Scotland) Act 1845, which requires Scottish commercial banks to hold Bank of England notes — or gold — as backing for any issued paper beyond their authorized limit. In practice this means every Clydesdale note in circulation is indirectly backed by sterling reserves held in London, a structural oddity that has periodically fueled political debate about the legitimacy of Scottish private note issue.

De La Rue's production of this series ran through a period when the firm was under serious internal pressure — a major accounting scandal broke in 2019, but the groundwork of cost-cutting that preceded it was already affecting quality controls in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The watermark remains the sole listed security feature for P#226A, modest by the standards of the period.