10 Ringgit

The first series of Malaysian ringgit notes was issued following the Currency Act of 1967, which formally separated Malaysia's monetary system from the shared currency arrangements it had maintained with Singapore and Brunei since the formation of Malaysia in 1963. The Board of Commissioners of Currency, Malaya and British Borneo had managed that joint system; its dissolution was a direct consequence of Singapore's separation from Malaysia in 1965, though the final split took two more years to implement.

Thomas De La Rue had a long-standing relationship with newly independent Commonwealth nations requiring sovereign currency infrastructure at short notice. The watermark remains the sole security feature on this issue — modest by later Malaysian standards.