TIMELINE
1942: Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI) branch opened in Ljubljana.
2002: Stake in Banka Koper acquired by Sanpaolo IMI.

In December 1941 Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI) resolved to open a branch in Ljubljana that would report to the bank's Trieste branch, appointing Guido Happacher as its director. But like the branch in Spalato (Split), this branch, too, never actually became operational due to the increasingly dangerous situation in the region, where the civil war between Croats and Serbs (divided in turn between the monarchist Chetnik movement led by General Draža Mihailović, who sought to realize its vision of a "Greater Serbia", and the Communist Partisans) was entwined with the guerrilla war of the Communists and the Croatian irredentists in Dalmatia against their Italian occupiers.
Despite the relentless shooting, the branch's opening was officially announced on 24 April 1942, and work was begun to ready its new premises. But the military situation in the area, where there was a heavy partisan presence, became increasingly insecure, and on 10 September 1943, following Germany's occupation of Ljubljana, Happacher fled the city for Trieste.
In December 1943 an official decision was taken to close the agency, with the formal resolution being made at the BCI Board of Directors meeting on 23 August 1944.
In 2002 Sanpaolo IMI acquired a stake in Banka Koper (founded in 1955 as Istrska komunalna banka); it would later be transferred to the Intesa Sanpaolo Group.