VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
by Tom Gallagher on Mar. 20, 2012 NCR Today
You know it’s bad when a major bank tells you it does not want your business and closes your account. So it happened to the Vatican bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR). JP Morgan Chase’s Milan branch communicated the move in a recent letter, according to Italy’s leading financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.
Reuters reports the following:
JP Morgan Chase is closing the Vatican bank’s account with an Italian branch of the U.S. banking giant because of concerns about a lack of transparency at the Holy See’s financial institution, Italian newspapers reported.
The move is a blow to the Vatican’s drive to have its bank included in Europe’s “white list” of states that comply with international standards against tax fraud and money-laundering.
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