5 Pesos

Banco del Ecuador was a private commercial bank operating out of Guayaquil, not a central institution — Ecuador had no central bank until 1927. In the 1880s, several competing private banks held the right to issue currency simultaneously, creating a patchwork monetary system that the government struggled to regulate and that foreign creditors viewed with considerable skepticism.

The American Bank Note Company contract for this series placed it among the better-secured private emissions of the period. ABNC work from this era is generally consistent in quality, though the Banco del Ecuador issues are among the less commonly encountered in collections today, likely reflecting the bank's eventual absorption into the turmoil surrounding Ecuador's 1890s banking crises.