5 Shillings

The Mercantile Bank of India, London and China was incorporated under Royal Charter in 1853, growing out of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India — one of the exchange banks that financed the colonial trade networks linking Britain, India, and the China coast. The Colombo branch was a relatively minor outpost in that network, and the decision to issue low-denomination notes in shillings rather than rupees reflects the hybrid monetary environment of mid-19th century Ceylon, where both sterling and Company-era coinage circulated simultaneously.

Surviving examples from this 1857 issue are exceptionally rare. The bank itself was absorbed into the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1959, but its earliest colonial branch issues had effectively vanished from circulation long before.