Vatican still does not meet international money laundering standards

Moneyval Report on Holy See published:

"Moneyval’s Report on the Holy See and Vatican City State was published this morning. The Report comes in response to a request, made by the Holy See in February 2011, for its control system and safeguards against criminal activity in the economic and financial sphere, to be evaluated according to the procedures of the organization set up by the Council of Europe for this purpose. 

The Report recognises that the Holy See “has come a long way in a very short period of time” and is headed in the right direction. The Holy See has “cooperated closely with the evaluators and reacted quickly to remedy a number of deficiencies”. In keeping with its technical nature and purpose, the Report provides detailed indications of areas that still need to be improved upon in order to develop a system of control that is fully efficient"

Cathcon- the former head of the Vatican Bank, Gotti Tedeschi claims that he was sacked for wanting to combat money laundering - but this comes on the day that the Head of Compliance at HSBC resigned very publicly because of his appeasement of such banking practices.

Ironic indeed that the Vatican called in October for a complete overhaul of global financial oversight when it cannot even keep its own house in order. As late as July 2011, Cardinal Nicora was still in an impossible situation of regulating an operation that he had a major role in running.   According to an Italian press source, he needs permission from the Cardinal Secretary of State Bertone each time he pays a visit to the Vatican Bank. 

So no surprise progress is slow- a fact that neither public relations can cover nor the news that the ATM's have a Latin language option.

Council of Europe Moneyval Report- in  full and executive summary

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