2 Pa'anga

Thomas De La Rue has printed Tongan currency since the kingdom's first modern banknotes, giving the relationship an unusual continuity for a Pacific issuer of this size. The 2 Pa'anga denomination has historically been the workhorse of everyday Tongan commerce, where the informal economy and remittances from diaspora communities in New Zealand and Australia drive much of actual cash demand.

Pick 38 is a relatively modest security specification for its period — watermark and thread only, without the optically variable devices De La Rue was fitting to contemporaneous issues for larger clients. Whether a cost decision or a reflection of low counterfeiting risk in a small island economy is not recorded in the published literature.