Vatican’s financial transparency law comes into force

The new Vatican norm on the prevention and combating of money laundering and financing terrorism entered into law Friday, April 1^st. It was first issued on December 30 together with the Apostolic Letter "Motu Proprio” of Benedict XVI on the same topic.

In a statement released Friday Press Office director Fr Federico Lombardi notes "The law, as well as the Motu Proprio - is an event of great normative importance and has a far-reaching moral and pastoral significance”.

Offices and Agencies required to comply with the law include the IOR, the Institute for Religious Works, and other organisms that depend on Vatican City State or the Holy See, or are linked to it. To ensure compliance with the new measures is the AIF, the Financial Information Authority, an autonomous and independent body.

The Regulation concerning the transportation of money in cash also comes into force today", the note adds. This new rule "does not forbid carrying sums greater than 10,000 (ten thousand) euro when entering or leaving Vatican City State, but it does stipulate that they be declared to the offices and organisations obligated by the anti-money laundering legislation, where an operation is to be carried out, or to the Corps of the Gendarmerie at the entrance to the State. ... The failure or partial failure to meet this obligation to declare will be punished with an administrative sanction".

Finally Fr Lombardi explains that "last month Marcello Condemi and Francesco Di Pasquale, respectively substitute president and director of the Financial Information Authority, participated on behalf of the Holy See and of the Financial Information Authority itself at the third meeting on the application of the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism. The convention was signed in Warsaw, Poland, in 2005".

Condemi and Di Pasquale "also had the opportunity to meet with members of MONEYVAL, an office of the Council of Europe charged with examining anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws, including those of the Holy See. In coming days they will attend the thirty-fifth plenary assembly of MONEYVAL in Strasbourg, during which attention will also be given to the Holy See's proposal to submit its own anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism measures for examination by that office".