50 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it held the note-issuing monopoly not just for one territory but across multiple overseas possessions simultaneously, a commercial banking concession that generated persistent friction with Lisbon throughout the early twentieth century. This 1921 issue was printed by Bradbury Wilkinson at their New Malden works, a firm whose intaglio security printing was considered among the most technically reliable available to smaller issuing authorities at the time.

The early 1920s were difficult for BNU's balance sheet. Portuguese colonial trade had been severely disrupted by the First World War, and inflation on the mainland was eroding confidence in escudo-denominated instruments across the overseas territories.