Bon towarowy PeKaO (or simply Bon PeKaO) cheques were substitute

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

(

complementary currency A complementary currency is a currency or medium of exchange that is not necessarily a national currency, but that is thought of as supplementing or complementing national currencies. Complementary currencies are usually not legal tender and the ...

) used in the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

. The Polish government, needing hard foreign currency, introduced them in 1960. Citizens of Poland had to exchange foreign currency they had into these notes (''bony'' in Polish plural), issued by the government-controlled

Bank Pekao Bank Polska Kasa Opieki Spółka Akcyjna, commonly using the shorter name Bank Pekao S.A., is a universal bank and currently the second largest bank in Poland with its headquarters in Warsaw. The Italian bank UniCredit used to own 59% of the com ...

. They were only accepted in special shops in Poland (

Pewex Pewex () (short for ''Przedsiębiorstwo Eksportu Wewnętrznego'' – Internal Export Company) was a chain of hard-currency shops founded in 1972, during the Communist era in Poland that accepted payment only in United States dollars and other h ...

Baltona Baltona (full: ''Baltona Foreign Trade Company Spółka Akcyjna'', former ''Baltona - zaopatrywanie statków'') is a Polish company acting mainly on a duty-free market in Poland and abroad. History Baltona was established on 3 September 1946, ...

) where one could buy restricted, imported goods. Outside of these shops and the entire country, bons had no value and were not regarded as legal tender. In the 1950s and the 1960s, turnover of Western currency was strictly prohibited, and since 1 January 1960, pre-World War Two currency was purchased by the national bank, which paid for it with bons. From the 1970s, these regulations were not controlled as strictly as before, which resulted in a flourishing

black market A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...

of foreign currency. All Polish citizens, who received money orders from the so-called “second payments area” ( pl:drugi obszar płatniczy), which covered

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, were not paid in real cash - dollars, pounds or marks, but instead, were issued with bons. This applied to those who received all kinds of payments from the West - salaries, pensions, monetary gifts, grants, donations. Bon towarowy PeKaO was used only for purchases at Pewex or Baltona stores, which were controlled by the government. These stores sold imported luxury products, otherwise not available on the domestic market - candy, coffee, chocolate, liquors, household appliances, cars. In the course of time, the bon became the unofficial second currency of Poland, due to rising inflation of the złoty. In the 1960s, the price of one bon was 70-80 złoty, in the 1970s it rose to 150 zł, and in 1981, to 400 złoty. By 1989, the price of one bon was 7000 złoty, and finally, after the monetary reform of

Leszek Balcerowicz Leszek Henryk Balcerowicz (pronounced ; born 19 January 1947) is a Polish economist, statesman, and Professor at Warsaw School of Economics. He served as Chairman of the National Bank of Poland (2001–2007) and twice as Deputy Prime Minister of ...

, the price of one bon (equivalent to one US dollar) was established at 9500 zł. Following the collapse of the Communist system, foreign currency trade became legal, which meant that the bons lost its raison d'être. Bons were printed in banknotes equivalent to 1 US cent, 2 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, 1 US dollar, 2 dollars, 5 dollars, 10 dollars, 20 dollars, 50 dollars and 100 dollars. They first appeared on the market on 1 January 1960, and were almost always stamped at the back with the exception of some of the last post-1971 issue banknotes.

See also