ABSTRACT
Currency: The French Treasury in Saigon sold bills of exchange in piastres trésor, which were equal to the Spanish or Mexican dollar.
Original quotations at Saigon
Saigon, which had been in the possession of France since 1859, was the most important trading centre and the only exchange place of international relevance in French Indochina and in the Indochinese Union from 1887 respectively. There are references to exchange operations of Saigon with Paris from the end of the 1860s, when the French Treasury (Trésor) sold a bill of 100 francs for 18 to 18½ piastres trésor (cf. NOBACK [1877], p. 53), whereas local banks generally sold them for almost 17 piastres. Nevertheless, longer exchange rate series are not available until 1888, and there are exclusively government quotations on Paris and London. According to the decree of December 30th 1886, the governor-general could fix the official quotations for the franc for government purposes, although this rate should have been fixed as close to the commercial rate as possible. When the commercial rate fluctuated noticeably, the governor-general also changed the official rate (SPALDING [1918], p. 228), so that the documented quotations perfectly describe the changes on the Saigon exchange market. Apart from the quotations on Paris and London, the three most important banks of Saigon – the Banque de l’Indo-Chine, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, and the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation – also listed the quotations on Hong Kong and Singapore as well as on Manila from the end of the 1860s. In any case, the main business of these banks in Saigon consisted in buying up the drafts of the export business, above all those on Hong Kong and partly those on other places on the Chinese coast (NOBACK [1877], p. 53). While the source mentioned above does not list any usances at all, the information given in contemporary merchant manuals and in the literature is contradictory: on Paris and Asian places mainly 30 days’ sight bills seem to have been drawn, on London those with terms between three and six
on: in: per: Paris francs 1 piastre trésor London shillings and pence sterling 1 piastre trésor
months’ sight. At the beginning of the 20 century the two European places have probably been quoted at sight and three months’ sight (ibid.; S [1889], p. 472; SPALDING [1918], p. 231).
