VATICAN CITY
Fortune
by Shawn Tully JUNE 4, 2015
Under new leadership, the Institute of Religious Works is looking to progress from handling deposits to asset management.
For decades, the Institute for Religious Works embarrassed the Vatican with a legion of alleged sins––rampant money-laundering, thwarting Italian authorities by concealing the identity of its depositors, and an arrogance that might be best expressed by the phrase, “God’s bankers do their own thing. The rest of the banking world can do theirs.” Even bank offices in a medieval prison tower commissioned by Pope Sixtus V deepened the dark legend.
But since early 2013, the IOR, informally called the Vatican Bank, has modernized its operations and rescued its reputation. Today, the IOR is tightly regulated by the Vatican’s SEC, the Department of Financial Intelligence. It regularly exchanges tax and other information on its depositors with the Italian government. It publishes richly detailed annual reports, which are audited by Deloitte.
Now, IOR’s president, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, wants to transform the bank’s business model. Appointed last July, de Franssu is the IOR’s second professional leader, and the former European chief of Invesco, the $800 billion-plus mutual fund colossus based in Atlanta.
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