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The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a French-mandated institution — a concession held by a consortium linked to the Banque de l'Indochine — operating under terms that kept monetary control firmly in Paris rather than Beirut or Damascus. By 1939, with the mandate already politically contested and war imminent in Europe, this issue carried an unusual urgency: French authorities needed stable currency infrastructure in the Levant regardless of what was about to happen on the continent.

Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement places production squarely in England, not France — a telling logistical choice given the deteriorating situation. The Banque de Syrie et du Liban would be formally liquidated in 1956, split along the lines of two newly independent states.