Mexico: Banco de Queretaro 10 Pesos Banknote (1914)

El Banco de Querétaro, S.A., was officially founded on February 24, 1903, when the federal Secretaría de Hacienda granted the banking concession to Nicolás del Moral and Guillermo Obregón8. The bank was successfully launched with an initial capitalization of 1,000,000 pesos12. The concessionaires and early board members were part of the wealthy regional elite who maintained close ties with the "Científicos"—the technocratic advisors of the Porfirio Díaz regime—which allowed them to integrate both Mexican and French financial capital13.

Economically, the bank operated as the designated state-chartered financial institution for the State of Querétaro, facilitating regional commerce, agricultural development, and industrialization. Querétaro was geographically and economically vital, serving as a major hub for the expanding national railroad network, which connected the agricultural heartland to the capital and the northern border. While El Banco de Querétaro was the primary state bank of issue, it was not a monopoly; it operated alongside branches of massive national institutions like the Banco Nacional de México (Banamex) and the Banco de Londres y México, which dominated large-scale federal transactions and commercial interests across the republic