VATICAN CITY
Deutche Welle
The Vatican’s bank has published its first-ever annual report as part of Pope Francis’ reform drive. He is also due to convene talks with eight cardinals to map out administrative reforms in the church worldwide.
The Vatican bank published its accounts for the first time on Tuesday, showing that its earnings in 2012 were 86.6 million euros ($117 million), four times higher than in 2011.
The bank’s new president Ernst von Freyberg said the bank, known internally as the Institute for Works of Religion [IOR, using the Italian-language acronym], was “working hard” to improve its transparency, compliance and organization.
More than 50 million euros of the 2012 profit was given to the papal chair for charitable works, said the report. The bank, founded in 1942, runs the Vatican pension system and oversees 6.3 billion euros in customer assets.
Its clients include religious orders, Vatican embassies, individual cardinals and foreign embassies accredited to the Vatican.
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