TIMELINE
1937: Banco di Napoli (BN) branch opened in Mogadishu.
1950: BN branch opened in Kismayo.
1969: Both branches nationalized.

Italy's interest in Somalia was first sparked in 1869, the year in which the Suez Canal was officially opened. Thanks to a secret treaty, Luigi Federico Menabrea, then Italy's Prime Minister, succeeded in taking control of various coastal areas that same year. In 1889, following an agreement made with the Sultan of Zanzibar, Somalia became an Italian protectorate. The area would go on to become a full Italian colony in 1905 and subsequently, in 1936, following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, an integral part of Italian East Africa, along with Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Italian immigration to the area, the export of agricultural commodities and urban development brought about significant economic development, spurring Banco di Napoli (BN) in 1937 to take over one of Cassa di Risparmio di Torino's branches in Mogadishu and make it its own.
In 1938 the Mogadishu branch, which was officially classified as such, but managed as a first-tier agency, started up its own banking activities, which primarily revolved around providing mortgages to boost agricultural activities. Transformed into an agency in 1939, following the recapture of the protectorate by the British Imperial Forces in 1941 the office operated under the control and within the restrictions of the latter; only in 1949 would it be able to freely resume its normal activities.
It was in this period, due to the needs of the large Italian emigrant community in the country, that BN decided to open a second branch in Kismayo, as well as - starting in 1952 - a weekly counter in Margherita (now Jamaame).
In 1951 BN helped set up a company called Manifatture Cotoniere d'Africa (African Cotton Works).
Even after the Trust Territory of Somaliland under Italian administration became independent in 1960, the Mogadishu branch continued to operate. However, the enactment of a nationalization ordinance in 1969 led to the closure of both the latter and the branch in Kismayo.