VATICAN CITY
ABC News
VATICAN CITY May 19, 2014 (AP)
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
The Vatican’s financial watchdog agency said Monday that “corrective measures” were necessary at the Holy See’s troubled bank to continue the path toward financial transparency and compliance with international norms.
Financial Intelligence Authority Director Rene Bruelhart said a long-awaited investigation of the bank, officially called Institute for Religious Works, included looking into its practice of not disclosing the names of the true account holders in its transactions with Italian banks.
He said the main problems identified in the inspection, which has been called for by European anti-money laundering evaluators, concerned the bank’s procedures for identifying high-risk activities, and that more detail was necessary.
Bruelhart spoke to reporters Monday after his authority’s annual report showed a spike in the number of suspicious financial transactions being reported: 202 in 2013 compared with only six a year earlier and just one in 2011. Five of those 202 were referred to Vatican prosecutors for possible investigation.
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