50 Dollars Foreign Exchange Certificate

Bank Polska Kasa Opieki — Pekao — issued Foreign Exchange Certificates from the late 1960s as a mechanism to capture hard currency from Poles receiving remittances from relatives abroad, primarily in the United States. Rather than allow dollars to circulate or be exchanged at the official rate, which bore no resemblance to real purchasing power, the state funneled incoming foreign currency through Pekao and replaced it with these certificates, redeemable only at the Pewex chain of hard-currency shops. The system effectively taxed the diaspora while rationing access to imported goods unavailable through normal socialist retail.

The 1969 series carried a watermark — modest security for what was, functionally, a parallel internal currency.