100 Dollars Foreign Exchange Certificate

Pekao's Foreign Exchange Certificates were a Cold War-era mechanism for extracting hard currency from Poles receiving remittances from abroad — typically from relatives in the United States or Western Europe. Rather than allowing direct dollar transactions, the state channeled incoming foreign currency through Pekao, issuing these certificates in exchange. They could be spent only at Pewex hard-currency stores, keeping Western money circulating within the controlled economy rather than leaking into the black market.

The 1960 series was printed domestically, unusual for a certificate whose entire purpose was to simulate Western monetary credibility. The embedded security band was a concession to that credibility — a visible anti-counterfeiting measure for a note that was never legal tender in any conventional sense.