5 Pounds Bank of New South Wales

The Bank of New South Wales was a private trading bank, not a central authority — these notes circulated alongside those of competing private banks well into the 1920s, before the Commonwealth Bank gradually consolidated note-issuing powers following the 1920 Australian Notes Act. By the time this series was being drawn down in the early 1930s, private bank notes were effectively finished in Australia; the Bank of New South Wales surrendered its issue rights, and remaining stocks were withdrawn.

Charles Skipper & East, the London security printer responsible for this note, also produced work for South African and colonial issuers across the same period — their output is identifiable by a characteristic fine-line guilloche style in the border work.