20 Baht - Rama IX Government Savings Bank

Issued to commemorate the 84th anniversary of the Government Savings Bank, founded in 1913 under Rama VI as a mechanism for mobilizing domestic savings during a period when Thailand's financial infrastructure was almost entirely dependent on foreign banking houses. The 1997 release date is notable: Thailand's baht collapsed in July of that year, triggering the Asian financial crisis that spread across the region within months. A commemorative coin celebrating state savings institutions, struck in the very year the currency required IMF intervention, carries an unintentional irony that the issuing authority could not have anticipated.