50 000 Riels

Cambodia's 50,000 Riel note was the highest denomination in circulation when it appeared — a telling signal of where the riel stood against the US dollar, which by the mid-1990s had become the preferred currency for any significant transaction in Phnom Penh. Oberthur's Rennes facility produced the note, a printer with deep roots in Indochinese colonial currency going back to the Banque de l'Indochine issues, though the political circumstances could hardly have been more different.

The denomination itself underscores the inflationary damage done to the riel through the UNTAC period and the instability following the 1993 elections. Dollarization was already entrenched by the time this note entered circulation.