All about Zakynthos

From the beginning of its operation, at the beginning of July 1905, the National Bank Branch in Zakynthos was housed in a leased (for 25 years) building of the politician Alexandros S.K. Roma, in Square George I (Theatre sq.) in Zakynthos Town. By the passing of time, the growth of business and the increased staff, the need to be housed in a larger and modern privately owned premises of the Bank was created. In 1926, the search for a plot of land in Theatro Square (Solomou Square) for the purchase and construction of a privately owned branch was initiated. The various offers were evaluated from time to time, with on-site visits to the island, by the civil engineer of the National Bank of Greece, Aristides Balanos, and the architect Nikolaos Zoumboulidis, head of the Bank's Technical Services. Finally, in 1931, it was decided to purchase the plot of land of Isabella Papageorgiou "next to the Town Hall", with a total area of 360 m², on which a building of 260 m² was to be built, with a ground floor (offices, trading room, cashier's office), a mezzanine floor (archives, material stores) and an upper floor (director's residence). The construction of the new building began in September 1931 with the demolition of the existing old buildings on the site and was completed in November 1933, when the Branch was established.  The official acceptance of the new building by the Bank took place on 3 August 1934. In the devastating earthquakes of August 1953, when the entire town of Zakynthos was flattened, the building of the Branch, together with the new Church of St. Dionysios, the 3rd Primary School of Ammos and the Sarakinis house, were the only ones of the 3,000 or so buildings in the town that survived due to modern anti-seismic construction.