Vatican Says Continuing Effort to Improve Financial Transparency

By Chiara Vasarri
The Bloomberg
April 10, 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-10/vatican-says-continuing-effort-to-improve-financial-transparency.html

The Holy See said it’s continuing efforts to prevent money laundering and improve financial transparency as the Council of Europe presses for compliance with international standards.

In a report issued in July, Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s monitoring body for money laundering and terrorism financing, said the Vatican was making progress in complying with international standards on financial transparency, though it still needed to improve supervision of transactions. That report stressed the importance of independent supervision of the Vatican bank, which is formally called the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR.

The Holy See’s next progress report will be presented in December, according to today’s statement posted on the Vatican Radio website. “With this initiative, the Holy See wishes to provide a more complete overview of the measures taken over the last year to further strengthen its institutional structure in the area of preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” the Vatican said.

Moneyval’s recommendations are used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to decide whether a nation should be included on the so-called white list of countries complying with international standards on financial transparency.

Contact: cvasarri@bloomberg.net