For a successful future, we need strong and deep roots. The roots of NLB Group go back to the year 1820, when Kranjska hranilnica was established as the second financial institution in the then state, and was later merged with Mestna hranilnica Ljubljanska.
In all these years a comprehensive banking heritage, in the form of work practices, banking technology, and bank instruments, as well as an art collection, has been compiled and maintained. This region is home to NLB Group, which is aware that cultural heritage is the pillar of identity to every nation. Therefore, it devotes a lot of attention to preservation of heritage.
The NLB heritage as part of national wealth of Slovenia
In 2018, the NLB museum collection of bank items and art collection were declared a national treasure of Slovenia. This fact places on NLB Group a great responsibility, including careful documentation and creation of conditions for preservation of heritage, as well as enabling accessibility for professional public to research collections and for the general public to view and enjoy it.
In 2019, NLB Group completed the Inventory Book of the Art Collection, which includes inventory of 2,254 fine arts of Slovenian modern age artists. In the Inventory Book of the NLB Museum Collection of Bank Items, the NLB up until now has collected slightly less than 500 examples which reveal the operations of various banking institutions, predecessors of the present bank, and key individuals who influenced the development of banking in Slovenia.
Digital exhibition of the NLB Art Collection
Works of art from the NLB Art Collection adorn business and public premises of NLB Group. A selection of the NLB Art Collection curated by Dr. Stane Bernik can be seen at the web address: https://www.nlb.si/umetniska-zbirka.
Works of art from the NLB Art Collection can be borrowed for setting up exhibitions in other museum institutions and besides that, they are accessible to professional public to research and study.
The NLB Avla Gallery
In 2019 four temporary exhibitions were organised in the NLB Avla Gallery.
Until NLB Group finds more appropriate gallery space for a permanent exhibition of the NLB Art Collection, it will organise temporary exhibitions in the NLB Avla Gallery at Trg republike 2 in Ljubljana, where in 2019 four temporary exhibitions were organised, namely:
- Photographic exhibition “Hello to You Says You Know Who”
- Exhibition of posters: 60 years of Jazz festival Ljubljana posters
- Exhibition of graphics upon 95th anniversary of the artist’s birth: Jože Ciuha – “The Times of Our Youth”
- Exhibition of works of art of the NLB Art Collection: Alenka Gerlovič
The Slovenian Banking Museum (being established)
NLB Group is preparing all that is necessary to open the only Slovenian Banking Museum in which items from the NLB Museum Collection and borrowed items from the area of banking, which are part of inventory of collections in other museums in Slovenia, will be put on display. The Slovenian Banking Museum will show the history of banking from the point of banking institutions and typical banking practice, with an emphasis on modern financial literacy lessons.
In the original premises of the oldest still functioning bank branch office of Mestna hranilnica Ljubljanska at Čopova 3 in Ljubljana, the Slovenian Banking Museum will presumably open its doors in November 2020.