50 Patacas Banco da China

Banco da China became the third note-issuing bank in Macau in 1995, joining Banco Nacional Ultramarino and Banco Tai Fung — an unusual arrangement that persists today, producing a circulating currency where the same denomination exists in three visually distinct versions simultaneously. The Bank of China's right to issue was a deliberate concession tied to the handover negotiations, giving Beijing's flagship state bank a visible presence in Macau's monetary system well before the 1999 transfer of sovereignty to China.

Printed by CBPMC in Beijing, this 2020 issue is part of a long-running series whose design continuity across decades makes individual date variants easy to overlook when sorting stock.