NLB, Slovenia's largest bank, is preparing to open a representative office in Albania and would consider an acquisition there if a bank came up for sale, the chairman of its management board, Blaž Brodnjak, told the Slovenia–Albania: An Economic Bridge forum at the MOS fair in Celje on 17 September. The group is studying the market before committing, and while nothing is in process, "if an opportunity to acquire a bank arises in the coming months, we will certainly take it very seriously," he said.
Banks are the backbone of the region's economies, Brodnjak said, and that is how NLB would come to Albania. The group is among the three largest lenders in five Western Balkan markets, he said, all of them, like Slovenia, financed largely through banks rather than capital markets.
A gap in the map
Banks have to publish, country by country, how much lending they are exposed to. NLB's filing for the end of June reads as a map of where the group has spent the past two decades: Slovenia €6.57 billion, Serbia €3.17 billion, North Macedonia €1.28 billion, Bosnia and Herzegovina €1.21 billion, Kosovo €1.04 billion, Montenegro €628 million, Croatia €165 million. Then a long tail of minor positions in France, Germany and dozens of other countries. Albania is in that tail, at €15,000.
Albania is the last gap in the regional map NLB has spent two decades building. The group's stated purpose commits it to the financial needs of its clients across South-East Europe, and a presence in Tirana would complete the picture.
The money is not the problem
Banks must hold a cushion of capital against what they lend, and regulators set the floor. At the end of June NLB was holding roughly €750 million more than that floor requires, and the group puts the size of acquisition it could absorb at up to €4 billion of added lending risk. That is more than its Serbian business carries today, and Serbia is its second market.
"If an opportunity to acquire a bank arises in the coming months, we will certainly take it very seriously."
Blaž Brodnjak, Chairman of NLB
Against Albania, those are outsized numbers. To be worth more than NLB's Macedonian arm, a target would have to be something over a tenth of the Albanian market, or roughly €2.6 billion in assets. A bank of that size would become NLB's third-largest subsidiary, behind Belgrade at €6.51 billion and Skopje at €2.58 billion and ahead of the four others, which sit between €1.19 billion and €1.63 billion. Only the three biggest banks in Albania would place it any higher. Whatever governs the timing of an Albanian deal, it is not the money.
Someone has to want to sell
What governs it is whether anything comes up, and the Albanian market is both concentrated and closely held. Thirteen banks hold licences, eleven of which appear in the regulator's breakdown of the system for December. On those figures, Banka Kombëtare Tregtare holds about a quarter of the system, Credins a sixth and Raiffeisen a seventh. Those three are the only ones large enough that buying them would outrank Skopje. Below them sit Intesa Sanpaolo on 9.2 per cent, OTP on 8.8, Tirana Bank on 8.1 and the American Bank of Investments on 6.9, and four smaller banks share what is left. None has announced a sale.
Only three banks are large enough to outrank Skopje
Share of Albanian banking system, per cent, December 2025
Source: Bank of Albania, Supervision Annual Report 2025
The pressure on owners is real even so. Albanian banks are well capitalised, holding regulatory capital worth 19.7 per cent of their risk-weighted lending at the end of June, and their bad loans are shrinking, down to 3.7 per cent of all lending from 4.0 a year earlier. What has changed is what the business earns. The return banks make on their shareholders' money fell from 16.4 per cent in June 2025 to 12.1 a year later, and the return on their assets from 2.0 to 1.5. A market that keeps growing while paying its owners a quarter less than it did a year ago is the kind where a distant parent starts asking what its small local subsidiary is for.
Why now
Brodnjak framed the move as part of enlargement, arguing that further delay of EU accession for the Western Balkans can no longer be justified and that there is no safe Europe without the region inside the union. South-eastern Europe has the best prospects of any European region, he said, with growth of 3.5 to 4 per cent forecast as accession approaches, and Slovenians know the region better than anyone.
"South-eastern Europe has the best prospects of any European region, with growth of 3.5 to 4 per cent forecast as accession approaches."
Blaž Brodnjak, Chairman of NLB
The relationship a purchase would land in is slight enough that one deal would remake it. Albania is Slovenia's smallest trading partner in the Western Balkans, taking €94.7 million of Slovenian goods last year against €1.29 billion for Serbia and €4.84 billion for Croatia. A bank of the size that would matter to NLB holds more in assets than Slovenia sells to Albania in twenty-five years.