20 Pounds Sterling

Bank of Scotland's polymer £20 arrived as part of the broader UK transition away from cotton-linen paper notes — a shift that put Scottish commercial banks in an unusual position, since they issue their own notes under a system that requires them to hold equivalent Bank of England notes or coin as backing. That arrangement, unchanged since the Currency and Bank Notes Act 1954, means Scottish banknotes are technically promissory notes rather than legal tender even within Scotland.

De La Rue's Edinburgh facility handled production, keeping the print run domestically sourced. Polymer adoption across the Scottish commercial issuers happened later than the Bank of England's own polymer rollout, which had begun with the Churchill £5 in 2016.