100 Francs with date

Banque de l'Indochine's wartime 100 Francs issue is one of the more geographically peculiar products of the Pacific war. With metropolitan France under occupation and the bank's normal European printers inaccessible, production was contracted to the Note Printing Branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Melbourne — an institution that had never before printed foreign colonial currency at scale. The arrangement reflected the improvised financial administration of Free French and Allied-aligned territories across the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions during this period.

The dating practice gives these notes their common name in reference literature: the year was not pre-printed but applied at time of issue, producing the range that spans 1943 into 1944.