Council of Europe Praises Vatican's Financial Clean up

Europe Online Magazine
December 12, 2013

http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/council-of-europe-praises-vaticans-financial-clean-up_308984.html

The Vatican has done "much" to improve clean up its track record on the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, the Council of Europe said Thursday.

In recent years, the Vatican has been trying to turn a page over the financial scandals that have dogged its bank, the Institute for Religious Work (IOR), which has been linked to the Sicilian mafia and other criminal groups.

"It is clear from this review that much work has been done in a short time," the council‘s Moneyval committee said in a report, which was approved Monday but published only three days later.

It checked progress against a more comprehensive July 2012 report, where Moneyval experts concluded that the Vatican was meeting only nine out of 16 international core financial transparency standards.

The Strasbourg-based body praised legislative reforms by Pope Francis that introduced harsher penalties for financial crimes, as well as the Vatican‘s compliance with international "black lists" on the freezing of terrorist assets and ongoing scrutiny of IOR accounts.

As of October, the bank had reviewed 30 per cent of its client database, and was due to move up to 50 per cent by the end of 2013 and complete the screening exercise in the first quarter of 2014, Moneyval was told.

As part of the clean up process, 105 suspicions transactions have been flagged up from January to October 2013, up from 6 over the entire course of 2012. Vatican authorities also seized 1,98 million euros (2,73 million dollars) during a money laundering probe.

However, Moneyval said it was "surprising" that the Vatican‘s financial watchdog, the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA), had not yet inspected the IOR and at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), the Vatican‘s central bank.

Moneyval also said FIA needed more staff to carry out its tasks.