20 Centavos Asunción Tramway Light & Power Co.

The Asunción Tramway Light & Power Co. was a British-registered concern operating Paraguay's urban transit and electrical infrastructure in the early twentieth century. Its decision to issue small-denomination fiduciary notes — effectively scrip — reflects the chronic shortage of low-value coin in Asunción at the time, a problem that afflicted much of the Río de la Plata region and drove private operators to plug the gap themselves.

The Compañía Sudamericana de Billetes de Banco handled most of the serious private printing work in the Southern Cone during this period before folding in 1918. Their involvement gives this scrip considerably more technical polish than most transit-company emergency issues.