20 Pa'anga

Tonga's Pa'anga series of the mid-1980s was issued under the authority of the Government directly — not a central bank — an arrangement that persisted until the National Reserve Bank of Tonga was established in 1989. This note predates that transition by a matter of months at most, making it among the last issues under the older governmental structure.

De La Rue printed the series in London throughout this period. The watermark remains the sole mechanical security feature — no metallic strip, no UV-reactive ink — modest even by the standards of the decade.