Equatorial Guinean ekwele

The renaming of the currency to "ekwele" from "peseta" was motivated largely by a sweeping Africanization program meant to rid the country of its colonial past by removing Spanish names and references from the public domain; the ekpele was a pre-colonial iron currency used by the Fang and Beti people.

All denominations depicted the first president Francisco Macías Nguema on the obverse and allegorical motifs on the reverse.

This time all denominations featured the second president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and had a design plan similar to the 1969 Equatorial Guinean peseta issue.

The "Banco Popular" issued notes in denominations of 25, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 ekwele from 1975 printed by the Thomas De La Rue banknote company.

After the fall of the Macías government the financial system was reformed with the "Banco de Guinea Ecuatorial" taking over the production of paper money in 1979 and issuing notes in denominations of 100, 500, 1000, and 5000 bipkwele.