5 Piastres

Banque de l'Indo-Chine occupied an unusual institutional position: it was a private French colonial bank granted authority to issue currency across French Indochina, operating simultaneously as a commercial lender and a note-issuing body. The arrangement created persistent tension with both the colonial government and local merchants throughout the note's period of issue.

Printed at the Banque de France's workshops in Paris — the same facility producing French state currency — the plates were engraved by Ruffe, a craftsman whose work appears across multiple French colonial issues of the period. The seven-year date span reflects reissues rather than a single continuous print run.