20 Dollars

The Banque Canadienne Nationale was itself only three years old in 1925, formed from the 1922 merger of the Banque Nationale and the Banque d'Hochelaga. This note belongs to the bank's first major chartered issue following that consolidation — a period when the BCN was aggressively expanding its branch network through Quebec and competing hard for commercial accounts against the anglophone-dominated Big Five.

The Canadian Bank Note Company in Ottawa handled production, as it did for most chartered bank issues of the period. Under the 1914 Finance Act framework, chartered banks retained the right to issue their own currency up to specified limits tied to paid-up capital — a system that would finally end with the Bank of Canada Act of 1934.