20 Centavos

Bradbury, Wilkinson printed this note for Banco Nacional Ultramarino's Mozambique branch during a period when fractional paper currency was being pushed into circulation to address a severe shortage of small-denomination coin across Portuguese colonial territories. The chronic coin famine affected multiple colonies simultaneously, and BNU responded with low-denomination notes across several issues in the early 1920s.

The 1921 fractional series is notably scarce in any condition — low-value circulating paper rarely survived sustained use in tropical climates, and redemption rates were high once metal coinage eventually returned.