500 Dollars Standard Chartered Bank

Standard Chartered's right to issue Hong Kong dollar banknotes derives from the colonial-era arrangement that granted note-issuing privileges to specific commercial banks — a system retained after 1997 handover under the Basic Law. By 2003, all three issuing banks had migrated to the HKMA's currency board arrangement, backing every note in circulation with US dollars held in the Exchange Fund at the linked rate of 7.80.

The $500 denomination in this series is the highest value note Standard Chartered regularly issued for general circulation, and cotton substrate was standard across the issuing banks for durability in Hong Kong's humid climate. Security thread and watermark specifications for this series were coordinated with HKMA requirements, not set unilaterally by the bank.