20 Cents Foreign Exchange Certificate; Large size

Bank Pekao's foreign exchange certificates were a calculated instrument of the Polish People's Republic — a way to siphon hard currency from citizens who received money from relatives abroad without allowing that currency to circulate freely or leave state control. The certificates were issued in exchange for dollars, marks, and other Western currencies surrendered at Pekao counters, then spent only at Pewex hard-currency shops, where imported goods unavailable in the regular economy could be purchased.

The 1979 series was printed domestically at PWPW, unusual given how closely the state guarded the political optics of a socialist government mass-producing scrip explicitly designed around Western currency dependency.