[ 2013-01-06 ]

Italy bans card payments in Vatican over money laundering
London (UK) - 03 Jan 2013 – The Telegraph - The
Bank of Italy suspended all bank card payments on
Vatican territory from the start of the year and
ordered Deutsche Bank Italia, which manages
electronic payments for the world’s smallest
country, to turn off its systems.

Italian newspapers reported that the action was
taken after officials at the Italian central bank
became worried that the Vatican was not prepared
to implement new anti-money laundering rules.

The suspension of card services means that the
Vatican museum, along with the territory’s
pharmacy and post office, have all been unable to
transfer money and accept payments.

A spokesman for the Vatican told the Italian press
the state hoped to find a non-Italian bank to
provide it with access to payment services
“quite soon” and that the problem would be
“short-lived”. The Vatican has not commented
directly on the Bank of Italy’s concerns.

Five million tourists visited the Vatican last
year and spent €91.3m (£74m). However, until
its payment systems are restored the Vatican said
that all transactions, including buying tickets
for its world famous museum, would have to be done
in cash.

Pope Benedict XVI has pledged to make the
Vatican’s finances more transparent. In the
past, the Vatican has been linked to organised
crime organisations that had infiltrated its
banking operations.

Vatican bank report blasts management and lack of
transparency

A European report has identified serious failings
in the Vatican's scandal-plagued bank, sharply
criticising its management and giving it a
negative rating in almost half the most important
transparency-related assessment criteria.

London (UK) - 18 Jul 20121 – The Telegraph - The
report, by Moneyval, a department of the Council
of Europe, suggests the Vatican still has a long
way to go before it can be included on an
international "white list" of countries that abide
by global norms on combating money laundering, the
financing of terrorism and tax evasion.


It was particularly pointed in its criticism of
the management of the Vatican bank, officially
known as the Institute for Works of Religion
(IOR), and "strongly recommended" it be
"independently supervised by a prudential
supervisor in the near future".

"Fit and proper criteria" should be applied to
senior management at the IOR, it said.

The report comes at a time when the Vatican is
battling to limit the fallout from a widening
corruption scandal, with Pope Benedict's butler
suspected of leaking sensitive documents that
allege wrongdoing in the Vatican's business
dealings with Italian companies.

Italian magistrates are now investigating the IOR,
the head of which was ousted in a dramatic
boardroom showdown in May.

The Vatican has been trying to shed its image as a
suspect financial centre since 1982, when Roberto
Calvi, an Italian known as "God's Banker" because
of his links to the Vatican, was found hanging
from London's Blackfriars Bridge.

Although Vatican officials say they are determined
to improve financial transparency in order to
qualify for inclusion on the global white list,
Wednesday's report showed they have their work cut
out.

It awarded the Vatican negative grades of
"partially compliant" or "non compliant" on seven
of the 16 so-called core and key recommendations,
while handing out grades of "compliant" or
"largely compliant" on the other nine.

The seven negative grades included insufficient
customer due diligence, insufficient compliance on
reporting of suspicious transactions, and
insufficient supervision and monitoring.

On the plus side, the report said the Vatican "has
come a long way in a short period of time" and
that many of the "building blocks" to combat money
laundering were in place, even though more had to
be done.

Moneyval, "The Committee of Experts on the
Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and
the Financing of Terrorism", is a monitoring
mechanism of the 47-nation Council of Europe that
tries to ensure that member states comply with
international financial standards.

Moneyval does not maintain its own "white list",
but supplies information that could eventually be
used by other organisations, such as the Financial
Action Task Force (FATF), to determine whether the
Vatican belongs on a "black" or "grey" list of
countries that fail to measure up.


Any such decision is at least a year away, and
would depend on a follow-up evaluation of how well
the Vatican implements recommendations in
Wednesday's report.

The Moneyval evaluation, which the Vatican
requested several years ago, grades a country
against 49 recommendations, of which 16 are deemed
"core and key".

It is not uncommon for countries to receive
partially compliant or non-compliant marks on
their first and even subsequent evaluations,
accompanied by suggestions on how to improve.

Vatican sources compared the performance with
Italy, which they said had five non-compliant or
partially compliant marks on "core and key"
recommendations in a 2005 evaluation.

In 2010, the Vatican drafted new financial
transparency laws and set up internal regulations
to make sure its bank and all other departments
that administer the Catholic Church around the
world adhered to international standards on money
laundering and terrorism financing.

Moneyval inspectors visited the Vatican in 2011
and 2012.

Source - The Telegraph

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