Tirana Bank partners with Backbase to lead Albania’s digital banking transformation

March 28, 2025

Tirana Bank has chosen Backbase to spearhead a wide-reaching digital transformation project, marking the largest technology investment in the Albanian bank’s history.

Backed by the BALFIN Group, Albania’s largest business conglomerate, Tirana Bank aims to triple its digital customer base over the course of the five-year partnership. The move underscores its commitment to rapid growth and innovation across retail and business banking services.

Backbase CEO and founder Jouk Pleiter said, “Tirana Bank’s vision for digital transformation perfectly aligns with our mission to help banks re-architect around their customers, and drastically improve their operating models utilizing our Engagement Banking Platform. This partnership showcases the growing demand for a sophisticated all-in-one banking platform and reinforces our position as the partner of choice for forward-thinking financial institutions in the region and beyond.”

The strategic collaboration will initially centre on transforming retail banking services, including the launch of new web and mobile banking applications and a full suite of digital lending capabilities for credit cards and consumer loans. Over time, these offerings will be extended to cover business banking clients as well.

By migrating from an in-house digital stack to Backbase’s cloud-native infrastructure, Tirana Bank will benefit from a scalable and secure evergreen service model. This architecture enables the bank to maintain high regulatory and compliance standards while accelerating innovation through rapid deployment cycles and enhanced personalisation features.

Tirana Bank CEO Dritan Mustafa said, “Our vision is to become the leading digital bank in Albania, and this transformative partnership with Backbase is the cornerstone of that strategy.

“We’re embarking on an ambitious growth journey to triple our digital customer base, and Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform gives us the technological foundation and flexibility we need to scale rapidly while delivering the innovative, customer-centric banking experiences that will drive our expansion. This represents more than a technology upgrade – it’s about fundamentally transforming banking in Albania and setting new standards for the region.”