Bank of Albania launches Money Talks centenary exhibition in Prishtina focusing on monetary history and financial literacy

The Bank of Albania published Governor Gent Sejko’s address at the launch in Prishtina, Kosovo of the exhibition “Money Talks: 100 Years: Life and Events – Bank of Albania”, marking the centenary of the first Albanian national currency entering circulation in 1926 and following the 100-year anniversary of the Bank’s founding in 1925. The speech framed money as a trust-based “social contract” and presented the exhibition as a public outreach and financial education initiative expanding beyond Tirana. The exhibition traces the history of the central bank and the Albanian currency across three major periods and different monetary regimes, from the gold standard and centralized planning controls to modern monetary policy frameworks guided by price stability. It draws on documentary holdings from the General Directorate of Archives in Tirana and the Italian State Archives in Rome, including reproductions documenting National Bank of Albania activity in Kosovo cities such as Prizren, Prishtina, Peja and Gjakova in the early 1940s; the address also linked the educational agenda to the growing complexity of household financial decisions and referenced approximation of European payment standards and the objective of integration into SEPA. Sejko thanked the Central Bank of Kosovo and other partners for supporting the Prishtina stop and noted the exhibition’s extension beyond Tirana to Kosovo and other Albanian lands, with the launch held on the eve of Kosovo’s Independence Day first declared on 17 February 2008.