JP Morgan Shuts Down Vatican Bank’s Account Over Transparency Fears
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US financial firm JP Morgan Chase will terminate the Vatican Bank’s account with its branch in Italy by the end of the month, after concerns grew over the lack of transparency at the Holy See’s financial institution.
US financial firm JP Morgan Chase will terminate the Vatican Bank’s account with its branch in Italy by the end of the month, after concerns grew over the lack of transparency at the Holy See’s financial institution.
According to a report by Reuters on Monday, the US banking giant came to its decision after observing that over 1.5 billion euros ($1.99 billion) in cash had been passing through the Vatican Bank’s account in the last 18 months, with the account emptied out at the end of each day through fund transfers.
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The Vatican Bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), also failed to give JP Morgan enough information on any of the money transfers, while one of its bank accounts was frozen in 2010 following investigations into possible money laundering.
Over the weekend, Italy’s leading financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported that JP Morgan’s Milan Branch had informed the IOR of its decision through a letter dated on February 15th.
While both parties declined to comment on the situation, it is believed that IOR’s account in JP Morgan’s Italian business capital would gradually be phased out from March 16th and closed on March 30th.
[quote]The IOR’s JP Morgan account was a “sweeping facility”, claimed Il Sore. The funds that were being transferred out daily also led to another IOR account in Germany, added the Italian newspaper.[/quote]The news comes as another blow to the Vatican Bank’s image after being listed two weeks ago as a possible money-laundering risk by the US State Department.
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Although the Vatican have been striving to have its bank included in Europe’s “white list” of states that comply with international standards against tax fraud and money laundering, the Vatican Bank remains shrouded with controversy after a spate of recently leaked documents – called “Vatileaks” – seemed to indicate financial misdealing on the church’s part.
Vatican spokesman, Reverend Federico Lombardi, recently had to dismiss a supposed leak letter that spoke about an assassination attempt on the pope as “so completely beyond reality and hardly serious,” but he acknowledged that the Vatican was taking allegations of financial mismanagement extremely seriously.
