Slovenian banks a decade later

Yugoslavia's (1) economic system differed in many respects from the model pursued by other communist countries, and banking is certainly one of the areas where the country set itself apart from its peers. Yugoslavia had already introduced a two-tier banking system in the mid-1950s and also established a decentralised system of communal banks and savings institutions. In 1960, a new banking law further reduced the range of commercial activities of the National Bank of Yugoslavia (the central bank) and opened the way to the creation of commercial banks. To ensure that banks met the needs of non-financial enterprises, the latter were allowed to set up and own commercial banks (2). In the Yugoslav Republic of Slovenia, a milestone in the development of banking was the establishment of the Credit and Savings Bank Ljubljana in 1967, which accounted for about 70 percent of total banking sector assets in Slovenia (Prinčič, 2001) and later evolved into Ljubljanska banka (LB), Slovenia's largest bank. Towards the end of the 1960s, banking licenses were broadened, allowing banks to pursue international operations, including the establishment of representative offices abroad (3). Overall, banks became increasingly independent and profitoriented (Štiblar, 1997).