By Stephen Rae for AMLi
THE VATICAN has announced a major re-organisation of its AML unit following a review ordered by Pope Francis.
In the wake of decades of financial scandals, controversy and intrigue the Holy See said it was revamping its financial intelligence and anti-money-laundering unit.
Vatican officials said Saturday the changes involve the governance and organisation of the unit, which has been renamed the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority (ASIF). Up until now the department was called the Financial Information Authority (AIF).
Its functions include “supervision aimed at the prevention and countering of money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” according to the a statute announced over the weekend.
The Vatican said ASIF’s activities were being divided into three units:
- Vigilance
- Rules and legal affairs, and
- Financial information.
Carmelo Barbagallo, the new ASIF president and a former Italian central bank official, said the changes ordered by Pope Francis would strengthen the entity’s financial supervisory responsibilities.
In signing off the statute, Pope Francis cited the Holy See’s “progressive implementations of supervisory offices regarding anti-laundering, combating terrorism and the proliferation of the arms of mass destruction.”
The changes follow a visit by inspectors of the Council of Europe’s Moneyval agency on measures to prevent money-laundering and funding terrorism. The Moneyval team is due to report on its findings in late April 2021.
Pope Francis is intent on bringing greater accountability and transparency to the Vatican, building on efforts forged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, the Associated Press reported.
Financial scandals have dogged the Vatican for decades – one of the latest centers on a London real estate deal involving a $350 million Vatican investment. Vatican investigators are currently looking into the case.
Getting oversight of the Vatican finances and introducing changes has been a priority for Francis – albeit he has met resistance from within at every turn.
Since being inaugurated in 2013 he has overseen the recruitment of experienced personnel from the worlds of business and finance to fill top jobs in the Roman Curia – the Vatican’s ultra conservative and secretive bureaucracy which has been hugely resistant to reform.
The outside executives have been attempting to bring the Vatican’s accounting and budgeting processes up to international standards. Reforms have been accelerating this year, with several papal edicts establishing procedures, notably around public tenders to prevent corruption and conflicts of interest.
Much has been written about the Institute for Religious Works, the opaque body colloquially known as the Vatican bank and described as “the most secret bank in the world.” Soon after his inauguration in March 2013 Francis ordered a task force to scrutinize the bank. In a further attempt at reform in 2014 he set up the Secretariat for the Economy in charge of all economic activity in the Vatican City.
Aides to the the 83-year-old Argentine Pontiff have reportedly voiced their frustration at the resistance of the Roman Curia to the long overdue oversight of the Church’s finances. The Pontiff has even called the bureaucrats “the last court that remains in Europe,” saying it’s filled with careerists and gossips.
Observers have described how the Curia has fiercely circled the wagons against transparency and accountability. Some officials have even been refusing to give up the privileges that control of the Vatican’s mammoth finances has bestowed on them.
“The Roman Catholic leader hears them out, then urges them to forge ahead. ‘I don’t understand any of this stuff. Talk to each other, and don’t lose your sense of humor,’ he says. ‘But we have to keep going. I won’t stop,'” Bloomberg quoted the Pope as saying.
The announcement of the new statutes Saturday and the revamp of the AML department marks one of the most significant internal Church moves of the Pontiff.
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