For most Albanians, memories of the civil unrest that began in 1997 remain vivid. Following the collapse of the country's pyramid investing schemes, which saw Albanians lose savings totalling some $1.2bn, the country descended into anarchy, with widespread rioting, looting and killing. In March that year, gangsters used a stolen Type 59 tank to rob a branch of the Savings Bank of Albania - today Raiffeisen Bank - in the southern town of Gjirokastra.
Given the caution engendered by that experience, it came as little surprise a decade later that Albania's banking sector took the global financial crisis in its stride. As turmoil gripped the financial markets elsewhere in Europe, Albania's position as an outlier may have played to its advantage. The country's relatively limited integration into the world economy and the global financial system meant it was barely exposed to toxic assets or bad banks. There was no corporate bond market to dry up, nor was there a functioning stock exchange to collapse.
