Pope appoints new Vatican bank head
Pope appoints new Vatican bank head
FEBRUARY 15, 2013 BY
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Pope Benedict XVI appointed a German lawyer, Ernst von Freyberg, on Friday 15 February, to head the Vatican’s central bank, currently under investigation by Italian authorities.
The bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion, has been without a director for nine months, after it came under scrutiny in an Italian money-laundering investigation. The bank’s former director, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was removed from his post for dereliction of duty.
Von Freyburg, a member of the centuries-old religious order of the Knights of Malta and chairman of Hamburg shipyard Blohm + Voss, is expected to address concerns over the bank’s regulations and transparency as it attempts to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s white list of financially transparent countries.
Earlier this week the Vatican selected a Swiss payment services company, Aduno, to handle all of its credit card payments, following a ban imposed by Italian authorities on credit card transactions in the Holy See. The ban by the Italian central bank had come into effect 1 January for non-conformity to European regulations on money laundering. The ban affected payments for tickets to Vatican museums and those made at the post office and shops.
Benedict shocked the Catholic Church Monday by announcing his resignation.
