5 Pounds

The Oriental Bank Corporation — chartered in 1851 as a successor to the Bank of Western India — was already operating under that name informally before the royal charter was granted, which is precisely why notes from this Colombo branch predate the formal incorporation. The bank functioned as a quasi-central institution across British colonial Asia, and its Ceylon notes circulated alongside Company rupee issues in a currency environment that was genuinely chaotic for merchants dealing across Colombo, Bombay, and Mauritius simultaneously.

Batho & Bingley of Lombard Street were a respected London security printer of the period, though they were eventually overshadowed by Perkins Bacon as colonial note printing consolidated. Examples from this 1846–1850 window are rare — the bank itself collapsed in 1884, and surviving pre-charter colonial branch notes were never common to begin with.