5 Pounds - Victoria Union Bank of Australia Limited

The Union Bank of Australia Limited was one of the major Anglo-Australian trading banks chartered in London, and by 1905 it was already operating under the shadow of the merger negotiations that would eventually fold it into the ANZ group in 1951. Waterlow & Sons produced the plates, as they did for a significant portion of the Australian private bank note output of this period — a near-monopoly of prestige security printing work for the colonial and post-Federation banking sector.

Private banknote issuance in Australia effectively ended with the Australian Notes Act of 1910, which gave the Commonwealth government exclusive right of issue. Notes already in circulation could remain legal tender briefly, but the banks were compelled to withdraw their own issues. Survivors from this final pre-Commonwealth window are correspondingly scarce.