500 Ngultrum

Bhutan's Royal Monetary Authority introduced the 500 Ngultrum in 2000 as the highest denomination in the series at that time, a reflection of steady inflation across the preceding two decades rather than any acute monetary crisis. Thomas De La Rue's production quality on this series is solid but unremarkable by their standards — no unusual printing technique distinguishes it from the firm's broader South Asian output of the period.

Security provision is modest: a single embedded thread and watermark, with no optically variable device or color-shifting ink. For a note of this face value, that's a relatively thin security package by 2000 standards.