History
The bank's first governor was Ion Câmpineanu. Eugeniu Carada is associated to the National Bank, as he was the founder of the bank and he was elected director of the bank, but he never accepted the role of Governor.
In 1916, in the wake of the Central Powers' invasion, the valuables of the National Bank of Romania, together with many other valuables (the Romanian Treasure) were sent to Moscow for safekeeping, but were never returned (except for the Pietroasele treasure - now on display at the National Museum of Romanian History, the numismatic collection of the National Bank, some paintings and archives).
On 28 July 1959, an armed group of six Jewish Romanian, members of the Romanian Communist Party apparatus (the Ioanid Gang: Alexandru Ioanid, Paul Ioanid, Igor Sevianu, Monica Sevianu, Sașa Mușat and Haralambie Obedeanu) were alleged to have stolen from an armored car of the National Bank of Romania 1,600,000 lei (about 250,000 U.S. dollars at 1959 prices). It was allegedly the most famous bank robbery in the Eastern bloc. Beyond accusations based on various ideological guidelines, no reasons for the alleged robbery, or for the Ioanid group to have perpetrated it, were ever given at the trial.
Although the persons on trial were accused of intending to donate the money to Zionist organizations that would send Romanian Jews to Israel, the stolen sum was in lei, which at the time could not be exchanged for hard currency anywhere in the world. All these aspects, together with the numerous cases of sentences based on false accusations, have led most persons to doubt that any robbery actually took place or that those charged with the crime committed it.
On 11 June 2021, Mugur Isărescu and Octavian Armașu, governor of the National Bank of Moldova, renewed the cooperation agreement between the two central banks, expanding collaboration in institutional capacity building, supervision, crisis management, payment service providers and e-money issuers, and financial market infrastructure.[10]
