A European financial watchdog said the Vatican has made significant progress in banking reforms.<br /><br />Moneyval, a Council of Europe monitoring committee, suggests the Vatican’s bank would benefit from even stronger controls, which would reduce the bank’s risk of being used for money laundering.<br /><br />Pope Francis has made cleaning up the Vatican’s financial image a priority. <br /><br />He has greatly increased the powers of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) and has not ruled out closing the bank altogether, if it cannot be reformed.
