Biggest issue is our reputation: IOR President

Vatican City, 01 June 2013: “It is a great privilege to work here; it is the most inspiring environment you can imagine: working at the Vatican. And it is a great challenge to serve the pope in re-establishing the reputation of this institute”, said Ernst von Freyberg newly appointed president of the Vatican’s Institute for Religious Works, known by the acronym of its Italian title IOR. While speaking to Vatican Radio’s Fr. Bernd Hagenkord S.J this week von Freyberg said that his mission is to restore its reputation as a transparent financial institution in line with international norms at the service of the Holy Father and its 19 thousand customers worldwide, most of whom are nuns and clergy. He believes communication is a key part of this mission and members of the Church and the society at large must be informed of the IOR’s activities.

Our biggest issue is our reputation. Our work – my work – is much more communication than originally thought. And it is much more communication inside the Church. We haven’t done enough of that in the past. It starts at home, with our own employees, with those who work for the Church in Rome, with those in the Church around the world. To them we owe first of all transparency and a good explication of what we do and how we try to serve.”

About money laundering, he said: “The Holy See has committed to international standards. I apply the law and also the standards which are the highest standards required our correspondent banks. I personally have every week all the suspicious cases on my desk and have weekly meeting with the one responsible for the ante money laundering efforts. We also have a zero tolerance policy towards customers as well as employees who are involved in money laundering activities.”

When asked about what exactly is the IOR, Freyberg said: “The IOR is the same as it was set up in 1942. It only does two things: It takes deposits from its customers and it safeguards them. First of all we are something like a family office, which protects the funds of the members of the family. These members of the family are the Holy See, it is entities related to the Holy See, it is most of all congregations with worldwide activities, its members of the clergy and it is employees of the Vatican.
The second service we provide next to protection and safekeeping is payment services which means particularly for the Vatican-entities and for the congregations with worldwide activities, that we provide for them the service of transferring funds wherever their activities are.”

As to a question IOR is not a bank, he said: “We are not a bank. We do not lend money, we do not make direct investments, we do not act as financial counterparts so you cannot get a swatch or a hedge from us. We do not speculate in currency or commodities, our core is we receive money as deposits and we then invest it in government bonds, some corporate bonds and in the inter-banking market where we deposit with other banks, for a slightly higher interest rate than we receive in order to be able to give it back to our customers whenever they want it.”
Source: VR Eng