The Pakistani rupee

Who holds the sole right to issue notes

The State Bank of Pakistan Order of 1948 charged the new central bank with regulating the issue of banknotes and keeping reserves. The State Bank of Pakistan Act 1956 governs it today, and its Sections 24 to 35 give the bank the sole right to issue notes. The government kept issuing 1 rupee notes itself until the 1980s.

The notes are printed at home. In 1949 the government set up the Pakistan Security Printing Corporation in Karachi as a joint venture, holding 60% against 40% for Thomas De La Rue, and laid the foundation stone on 11 March 1949. Worried about counterfeiting, the corporation chose intaglio printing over lithography. It printed its first 1 and 5 rupee notes in the fiscal year 1952 to 1953.

How the rupee separated from India's

The Pakistan (Monetary System and Reserve Bank) Order was issued on 14 August 1947. It made the Reserve Bank of India the temporary monetary authority for both countries until 30 September 1948, a deadline an early 1948 agreement brought forward to 30 June. From 1 April 1948 the India Security Press in Nasik supplied notes for use only in Pakistan, Indian plates engraved with Government of Pakistan in English and Hukumat-e-Pakistan in Urdu. The signatures stayed Indian.

The government's own emergency series followed on 1 October 1948, printed by De La Rue with neither a watermark nor a security thread. On 1 March 1949 the State Bank issued its first note, for 2 rupees, in English, Urdu and Bengali. The rupee then still divided into 16 annas. It went decimal in January 1961, at 100 pice, a name changed to paisa later that year.

Why Bengali disappeared from the notes

Until 1971 the notes carried Bengali beside Urdu, because Bengali was the state language of East Pakistan, and in Bengali the currency was called the taka. On 8 June 1971 the State Bank declared that notes bearing political inscriptions were no longer legal tender and withdrew the 100 and 500 rupee notes. After East Pakistan's secession the government demonetised the remaining notes and issued a new series. Bangladesh brought in its own taka in 1972, at first at par with the Pakistani rupee, which then stopped being legal tender there.

What the pilgrims' notes were for

Pakistan put foreign exchange controls in place in 1949, and the rules opened a route for smuggling through the Hajj. From May 1950 the State Bank issued Hajj notes, the ordinary design in slightly different colours with an overprint marking their use. They were not legal tender in either East or West Pakistan. Pilgrims used them to buy Saudi riyals, and the notes came back to Pakistan through the banks. They were used until 1978.

Which notes and coins circulate today

The current series began on 13 August 2005 with a 20 rupee note, a denomination Pakistan had not issued before, and continued with notes up to 5,000 rupees. Every note except the old 1 and 2 rupee notes carries Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the front. On the back, in Urdu, runs a saying attributed to the Prophet: seeking an honest livelihood is an act of worship.

Two commemorative 75 rupee notes came out in 2022 and 2023. Shopkeepers refused them over Eid al-Fitr, and the State Bank had to state publicly that the notes remained fully valid. Paisa coins stopped being legal tender in 2013, which left the 1 rupee coin as the minimum legal tender.