Tirana, 6 July 2006 - The American Bank of Albania has now established itself as a solid financial institution in Albania. Its mission is to provide financial services not only to its customers in Albania, but also to the Albanian communities living and working in both Greece and Italy.

In 2005 ABA signed two important agreements with an Italian and a Greek banking institution – Banca Lombarda Group and ATEbank (Agrotiki Trapeza Ellades), respectively.

Back in June 2004, ABA opened its first branch in Athens, Greece. At that time that was a major step, but also an important landmark since ABA was the first and only Albanian bank to establish a branch outside of the country. Earlier this year, in April, ABA opened its second Greek branch in the beautiful seaport of Thessalonica, where the second largest community of Albanians is centered.

One year after the opening of its first Greek branch in Athens, on May 2005, ABA signed an agreement with ATEbank. This agreement allows all Albanians living and working in Greece to use ATEbank’s network of more than 450 branches to deposit funds toward their ABA Greece account, or transfer money to any ABA banking location in Albania. Another added benefit is the ability for customers to pay their monthly installment for loans granted by ABA Greek branches through ATEbank.

Following the same philosophy, another important agreement was the one with Banca Lombarda Group, which is a confederated bank in Italy with close to 1000 branches spread throughout Italy, with a strong presence in north and center of the country. The Group includes Banco di Brescia; Banca Regionale Europea; Banca di Valle Camonica; Banco SanGiorgio and BancaCassa di Risparmio di Tortona.

Thanks to this agreement the community of 320,000 Albanian can transfer funds to Albania with minimal fees. Furthermore, there are additional banking facilities that are being prepared for the almost 6,000 Albanian businesses registered in Italy.

According to 2005 statistics, incoming transfers channeled through the banking system, as of the end of 2005 showed that total remittances from Italy to Albania had reached Euro 124 million. Meanwhile, incoming transfers only through ABA represented 38 percent of the total or EUR 47 million of that total.