An exterior view of the tower of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) in Vatican City in 2011.Reuters
A French financier has been appointed as the new president of the Vatican's long-troubled bank.
As widely expected, the Vatican announced Wednesday that Jean-Baptiste de Franssu has been tapped to head the Institute of Religious Works, as the bank is formally called. De Franssu has been serving on a new Vatican economic council.
The outgoing president, a German industrialist named Ernst von Freyberg, worked to make the bank's transactions more compliant with international banking standards after Italian money-laundering and cash-smuggling probes stung the institution.
In an interview published in German newspaper Bild, von Freyberg declared: "The bank is now clean." Without elaborating, he said "dubious" investments resulted in costs of more than €45-million ($60-million).