50 Rufiyaa

The Maldives switched to polymer substrate for this series as part of a broader regional trend among island and coastal nations where humidity and salt air degrade cotton-paper notes at an accelerated rate — a practical engineering decision as much as a security one. Thomas De La Rue had been producing Maldivian currency since the 1980s, making this a continuation of a long-standing contract rather than a competitive tender result.

P#28 lists only a watermark among security features, which is notably sparse for a polymer issue — most contemporaneous De La Rue polymer notes incorporated clear window devices or optically variable elements. Whether additional unrecorded features exist on circulating examples remains a cataloging gap.