In 1891, Sultan Said Ali bin Said Omar of Grande Comore (Ngazidja) issued coins denominated in centimes and francs which circulated alongside French currency.

On 1 July 1925, the French government formed an agreement with the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas to create the Banque de Madagascar, headquartered in Paris, and granted it a private monopoly to issue currency for the colony of Madagascar.

When the Comoros became a separate French territory in 1945, the name of the issuing bank was changed to the Banque de Madagascar et des Comores (still headquartered in Paris).

This agreement provided for the establishment of a system of fixed parity between the French franc and the Comorian franc and free convertibility between the two currencies, guaranteed by the Comorian central bank's opening of an operations account (compte d'operation) at the French Treasury (Trésor public) to handle all exchange transactions.

This account is similar to overnight deposits with the French Treasury: it may bear interest and may, in special circumstances, post a negative balance.

The stability of the Comorian franc is founded on tight monetary and credit discipline, underpinned by two specific safeguard measures: the central bank is required to maintain 20% foreign-exchange cover of its sight liabilities, and the government is not allowed to draw more than 20% of the previous year's budget receipts from their central bank funds.

In 1998 in anticipation of European Monetary Union, the Council of the European Union addressed the monetary agreements France has with the CFA Zone and Comoros and ruled that: The statutes of the Central Bank of the Comoros (Banque Centrale des Comores / البنك المركزي القمري Al-Bank al-Markazi al-Qomori) state that its board of directors shall have eight members who are chosen from the Comorian Government, the French Central Bank (Banque de France) and the French government.

The post of deputy director of the Central Bank of the Comoros is held by a Banque de France official, who is responsible for monetary policy.

The three coins ceased to be valid in theory in 1912 but the lower two denominations were still turning up in general circulation as late as 1930.

[citation needed] All three coins bore similar inscriptions, including the date 1308 AH, which corresponds to the Gregorian calendar years 1890/91 AD.

In the 1920s, a shortage of coins led to the issuance of private tokens by the principal colonial company on Ngazidja and a sugar plantation on Mayotte.

This is indicated by the cornucopia mint mark on the coins, visible to the left of the date, although this was omitted from the 1994 50 FC piece at the request of the Comorian government.

The 5 FC coin contains the phrase "Conférence Mondiale sur les Pêches" (World Conference on Fishing).

It consisted of an emergency issue of Madagascar postage stamps fixed to card to allow them to circulate as money.

Loi ordinaire 62-873 du 31 juillet 1962, Article 12, allowed the Banque de Madagascar et des Comores to continue issuing notes in Comoros after Madagascar began issuing its own currency but, beginning 1 April 1962, they had "COMORES" overstamped on them.