100 Francs

Mali's 100 Francs issues of this period were printed by the Banque de France in Paris under a technical assistance arrangement common to several Francophone African states following independence. The Malian franc itself had a turbulent existence: Mali broke from the West African CFA franc zone in 1962 to issue its own currency, then suffered persistent inflation and exchange difficulties that forced a return to the CFA system in 1984.

This note belongs to the intervening period of monetary independence, when the Malian franc traded at a significant discount to the CFA franc — officially fixed at 2 Malian francs to 1 CFA franc from 1967, a rate widely regarded as overvalued.