Bank of Albania (Banka e Shqipërisë)

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This collection looks to the National Bank of Albania, or Banka Kombëtare e Shqipnis—not the later institution that adopted the Bank of Albania/Banka e Shqipërisë name in 1992. Formally established on September 2, 1925, the bank emerged from an agreement between the Albanian government and an Italian financial group. Its administrative headquarters were in Durrës, while its Administrative Committee sat in Rome: a suitably international arrangement for an interwar bank with big ambitions and an even bigger map.

In February 1926, the National Bank issued Albania’s first national currency, the gold frang and its lek subdivision. It was both a bank of issue and a credit institution, operating under the gold standard and expanding its lending activity. Money, politics, architecture, eagles, serious-looking engravings—the full prewar banker starter pack.

The National Bank’s convention and operations were cancelled by law on January 13, 1945, during Albania’s postwar nationalization process. The same day, the State Bank of Albania was established, beginning a different chapter in the country’s financial system. The present-day Bank of Albania traces institutional history through those eras, but this design cue belongs to the 1925–1945 original.

Our Bank of Albania (Banka e Shqipërisë) collection celebrates the Durrës-and-Rome era of Albanian monetary history: gold-franc swagger, formal façades, and the strange durability of a bank identity that outlived the institution itself.