VATICAN CITY (AFP) ― The Vatican on Wednesday named a French businessman to head up its scandal-plagued bank as part of a radical overhaul ordered by Pope Francis after a year-long inquiry.
Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, former chief executive of Investco Europe, will lead a newly streamlined bank following internal investigations into thousands of suspicious, ineligible or inactive accounts.
“Our ambition is to become something of a model for financial management rather than cause for occasional scandal,” Vatican finance minister Cardinal George Pell, who was himself named earlier this year, told journalists.
St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. (Bloomberg)
Franssu said he would “continue the efforts of transparency,” adding: “I see this role as a mission.”
“Catholic ethical investments will drive how we will manage assets,” he said.
The appointment comes a day after the bank said profits had been all but wiped out in cleaning up its accounts.
A team of experts have been preparing the ground for the overhaul since last summer, when the pope vowed to make Vatican finances transparent following decades of scandal.
The Vatican also announced a new committee to modernize and cut costs in its media activities to be led by British politician and chancellor of Oxford University Chris Patten, prioritizing Twitter and digital channels.
“We are working so that international financial standards will be followed in all the dicasteries (departments) and sections of the Holy See,” Pell said, though he admitted that “at the moment we are not quite at that stage”.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi praised the outgoing bank management
saying: “It was not easy to change from a style of silence and secrecy to one of transparency. And I think for the most part you have succeeded.”
Changes at the Institute for Religious Works ― as the bank is known ― will include shifting assets to a new central Vatican Asset Management, while an existing property agency will be absorbed into the finance ministry.
The VAM, to be set up within two years, is planned to operate independently from IOR.
Outgoing bank head Ernst von Freyberg had spoken on Tuesday of the “painful but very necessary process” of cleaning up the IOR but on Wednesday he said he was pleasantly surprised there was less murkiness than he had expected.
“The good surprise is that once you’ve checked everything at IOR, many things are not true.”