As you explore the streets of Habana Vieja,particularly O’Reilly, Obrapria, Compostella and Lamparilla, you frequently spot buildings or parts of buildings that remain from the days prior to the Revolution when Cuba was a Caribbean capitalist hub. Banks and insurance companies including many from the USA and Canada flourished on the island building impressive presence in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.
Plaque on what was once the First National City Bank of New York
Some these impressive edifices are residential or vacant but many have been repurposed and are today part of the Havana cityscape. Today a few of the world’s banks have representation in Cuba but in terms of powerful financial towers, none can rival the impressive buildings (or signs that they were once here) left over from another era.
Today the building continues to provide banking in its impressive hall as the Banco Metropolitano.
The still powerful interior of what is today Banco Metropolitano
This building might have been the Havana Stock Market but is also described as The Bank of Canada. Today it is a well known casa particular
Did this once mark the Bank of Havana?
The one time Royal Bank of Canada building currently being restored
This plaque on Compostella is all that remains of this institution
The Bank of Nova Scotia built in the early 1900s has today been re-opened as a Cuban bank
