20 Pesos German-Belgian Bank of River Plate

The Banco Alemán Belga del Río de la Plata was a private commercial bank established in Buenos Aires in 1872 with joint German and Belgian capital — one of several European-backed institutions that moved aggressively into Argentine banking during the early 1870s commodity boom. Waterlow & Sons handled the printing in London, as was common for South American private issuers who lacked access to adequate local security printing at the time.

Argentina's 1876 financial crisis, triggered by government debt default and peso depreciation, effectively ended most private bank note circulation. Notes of this type had a short window of legitimate use.