40 Centavos

The Banco Anglo-Peruano was a British-backed commercial bank operating in Lima during the guano boom's final years, when Peruvian public finances were already deteriorating badly. This note was issued just before the catastrophic fiscal collapse that preceded the War of the Pacific — a period in which private banks were effectively propping up a state that could no longer service its foreign debt.

The Compañía Nacional de Billetes de Banco, printing locally in Lima, handled production for several of the private issuing banks of this period. Forty centavos is an awkward fractional denomination, almost certainly issued to address a coin shortage rather than any ordinary banking need.