5000 Escudos

Cabo Verde's 5000 Escudo note is the highest denomination in the current series, issued by a central bank that has managed a fixed exchange rate peg to the Euro — previously to the Portuguese Escudo — since 1998, underwritten by a guarantee agreement with Portugal. That arrangement constrains domestic monetary policy almost entirely, which makes the physical currency somewhat ceremonial in macroeconomic terms, though the 5000 escudo note circulates in practice as the workhorse denomination for larger retail transactions in an archipelago economy heavily dependent on remittances and tourism revenue.

Thomas De La Rue's production in London is standard for smaller island-state issuers without domestic printing infrastructure. The security specification for this pick lists only a watermark, modest relative to De La Rue's full portfolio of available features.