VATICAN CITY
NDTV
Agence France-Presse | Updated: May 19, 2014
The Vatican bank’s stepped-up internal monitoring has led to a sharp rise in suspicious transaction reports — from just six in 2012 to 202 in 2013 and collaboration with foreign financial authorities has increased sharply.
“It means that the reporting system starts working, is working,” Rene Bruelhart, director of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority, a supervisory body, said as he presented its 2013 report on Monday.
The agency said that there had been a “notable” rise in reported shady deals at the bank, the Institute for Religious Works or IOR, and that it had so far passed on five requests for further investigation by Vatican justice.
In 2011, just one suspicious transaction was reported.
The AIF said that the number of requests for information it had received from foreign authorities had also increased to 28 from just one in 2012 and the number of similar requests it received were 53 in 2013 compared to three in 2012.
“This increase is also due to international cooperation fostered by a series of bilateral agreements we have concluded,” Bruelhart said in a statement.
The number of cash withdrawals above 10,000 euros fell to 1,557 in 2013 from 1,782 in 2012 and there were 550 declarations for cash deposits above that amount compared to 598 in 2012.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.