100 Vatu

Vanuatu's currency, the vatu, came into existence in 1982 following independence from the joint British-French Condominium — an administrative arrangement so unusual that the territory had operated two parallel legal systems, two police forces, and two sets of courts simultaneously. The Reserve Bank was established specifically to issue a unified currency replacing the New Hebrides franc, which had itself only been introduced in 1966 to consolidate the competing currencies circulating across the islands.

This denomination ran through two decades of issues with no substantive design change, a reflection of the institutional stability the Reserve Bank was deliberately projecting after the turbulent transition years.