20 Kyats

Burma's 1965 currency reform was a deliberate political act. Ne Win's Revolutionary Council demonetized the existing kyat series in May of that year specifically to destroy black market wealth and undermine ethnic minority traders along the Thai and Chinese borders — populations that held large cash reserves outside the banking system. This note was part of the replacement series that followed.

Security Banknote Company, based in Chicago, printed a number of Asian issues during this period. The watermark is the sole security feature — modest protection for a note that circulated in an economy increasingly closed to outside scrutiny after 1962.