A fully digital bank is set to enter the Albanian banking market. This is Jet Bank, which has received preliminary licensing approval from the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania.

At its lead, in a sector where this is still rare, stands a woman with more than two decades of experience in the financial system, both in Albania and internationally. Appearing on “Top Story”, Fatbardha Rino, Chief Executive Officer of Jet Bank, not only explained the bank’s operating model, its licensing process in line with national laws and European standards, and the ecosystem of internationally certified partners and platforms ensuring high-level security, but also shared her professional journey.

The CEO of Jet Bank explained that the proposal to become part of Jet Bank came after a series of meetings with the project manager, who had previously launched three banks, two of them greenfield institutions. It was then that she realized this project represented a significant new beginning and the challenge she had been seeking as an entrepreneurially minded woman driven by transformation.

Her 24-year professional journey began in 2001, at a time when banks were still state-owned, and has been marked by major challenges and turning points.

“I started my career with the American bank that today is Intesa Sanpaolo. Then, I continued in banks with very particular standards for Albania, and later in another international bank that acquired one of the largest banks in the country. I was part of that entire transformation, moving from one role to another, sometimes holding parallel positions. My career was not linear. In the early years, the development of the banking system was extremely fast. Young people found themselves in very important, even leadership positions. I was often involved in critical moments, frequently being asked to step into processes where something needed to be fixed or transformed,” Rino said.

A defining chapter of her career was her international experience, with several years of work in Austria, where she encountered a new and demanding dimension.

“In Albania, you deal with a bank within one country. There, you had to deal with 14 countries and with crises occurring across all of them. We had to define strategies and think about how to monitor 14 countries, where every detail mattered. That experience changed me as a banker, facing a completely different dimension. Each bank was distinct, with its own strategy, but you had to understand how to align them toward a common direction, like an orchestra,” Rino explained.

This experience pushed her to think beyond traditional products, beyond loans and payments, and to view banking as a technological and strategic structure. This shift became even more pronounced after the 2008 financial crisis, which served as a moment of reflection for the entire system, and after 2013, when digitalization began to fundamentally change how banks operated and how the customer relationship was understood.

“In 2014, we faced an extraordinary systemic challenge, as the rules of the game were changing due to digitalization. In the European market, we were encountering Monzo, Revolut, and N26, which at the time were seen as targeting specific segments of banking, such as payments, fast small loans, or international transfers. But by 2015, we realized they were introducing new products and understanding consumer needs even before consumers themselves did. The discussion then became how to transform a traditional, trusted bank with a 100-year history. It is important to understand that changing a system built over decades is far more difficult than creating a bank from scratch,” Rino noted.

Throughout her account, the CEO emphasized that behind the establishment of this digital bank stands a group of seasoned professionals.

“Each of them has more than 20 years of experience in the banking system. Some have been part of the transition from state-owned to private banks, others from traditional banks to digitalized ones. For me, building the right team was one of the most important objectives at the beginning of this journey,” she said.

Asked about her personal challenges as a woman and a mother of two, Rino described the balance between family and career as a dynamic process.

“Just like at work, decisions and challenges within the family must be shared. We have to accept that while building a career, it is impossible not to miss some family moments, just as there are times when family takes priority and career must take a step back,” she said.

She concluded with a simple philosophy: asking the people around her about their needs and expectations in order to understand what the market truly requires, and how necessary it is to build a bank, a digital platform, not just an app, that allows people of every generation to manage their finances in the most efficient and simple way possible.

“To build a bank that lives on your phone,” she explained simply to her son when he once asked her, “Mom, what do you do for a living?”