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Guinea Bissau

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau (Republica de Guine-Bissau) is a West African country that borders Senegal to the north and Guinea to the southeast. Guinea-Bissau includes the Bijagos archipelago and other islands that are near the coast. Guinea-Bissau was once part of the Kaabu Kingdom and the Mali Empire, two historically powerful African kingdoms. The country was also fully colonized by Portugal and was known as Portuguese Guinea until its independence in 1973. Bissau, the country’s capital, was added to the name to distinguish it from Guinea.

Guinea-Bissau uses the CFA franc as its official currency. However, before entering the West African CFA franc monetary system in 1997, Guinea-Bissau used the Guinean peso. One Guinean peso is equal to 100 centavos.

The Banco Nacional da Guine-Bissau (National Bank of Guinea-Bissau) is the first bank to have issuing authority over the Guinean peso post-independence. These notes bore the date of the second anniversary of independence (24-9-1975) but were introduced in March 1986. These notes highlighted important people in the history of Guinea-Bissau and their contributions. They also had solid security threads and watermarks of Amil Cabral. The second family of notes was introduced in 1983. These notes were redesigned to have better security, add more denominations, integrate more colors, and highlight the works and contributions of the people featured in the notes.

The Banco Central da Guine-Bissau (Central Bank of Guinea-Bissau) took over issuing authority from the National Bank in 1990. The Central Bank continued to issue the 1983 Issues. However, the 1990 Issues had some minor changes including reduced sizes, updated issuing authority, and color changes. These notes circulated and were demonetized in 1997.
 

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