5 Rupees Jaffna; Oriental Bank Corporation

The Oriental Bank Corporation's Jaffna branch notes occupy a peculiar niche in South Asian numismatic history. The OBC was a British overseas bank chartered under Royal Charter, and its Ceylon branches — Colombo and Jaffna — issued their own place-of-payment notes independently of one another. By 1875, the bank was already overextended across its Indian and Pacific operations, a structural weakness that would culminate in its collapse in 1884 when a severe drop in commodity prices triggered a run it could not survive.

Perkins, Bacon had long supplied security printing to colonial banking operations throughout the British Empire. Notes issued specifically payable at Jaffna are considerably scarcer than Colombo equivalents, reflecting lower commercial volume in the northern peninsula.