5 Pesos

El Banco Central was one of several Ecuadorian private banks of issue operating under the 1899 banking law, which attempted to rationalize a chaotic multi-issuer system that had produced chronic over-issue and repeated suspensions of specie payments throughout the 1890s. The bank's notes were theoretically redeemable in gold or silver, a commitment honored inconsistently given the fiscal pressures of the period.

The American Bank Note Company in New York printed for dozens of Latin American banks simultaneously during this period, supplying finished sheets that were then signed and numbered locally before release. S368 sits in a series where surviving examples are relatively scarce — the bank itself did not survive long into the twentieth century.