Pope Francis Appoints Msgr Mario Salvatore Prelate of Vatican Bank

Reform is underway for the troubled Vatican Bank after Pope Francis named on Saturday Monsignor Battista Mario Salvatore Ricca as interim prelate of the financial institution, known also as the Institute for Religious Work.

The post, which has been vacant since 2011, involves overseeing the bank's activities, attending its board meetings and going over documents. The monsignor will report to the panel of cardinals that runs the bank, giving the new prelate an almost direct line to Pope Francis. The panel is headed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.

He is the current director of Vatican Hotel where the pontiff stays and other residential accommodations owned by the Holy See.

The interim appointment of Msgr Ricca is an indicator that Pope Francis is still open to other ways to reform the Vatican bureaucracy, which was one of the priorities that cardinal agreed to when they elected in March the then Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the successor of Pope Benedict XVI.

Before he resigned on Feb 28, Pope Benedict removed Italian banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi as president of the bank for alleged incompetence and appointed as his replacement Ernst von Freyberg, a German aristocrat and financier.

But the new president said the biggest problem of the bank is its damaged reputation, not operational weaknesses. However, the Council of Europe's Moneyval committee, in its initial evaluation in 2012, found weaknesses in the bank, citing its rules for customer due diligence, wire transfers and reporting suspicious transactions as not enough.

Moneyval recommended independent supervision for the Vatican Bank and the need for a through risk assessment to ensure the company knows it clients and the risks it faces.

Prior to the Holy See signing a new European Union monetary agreement in 2009, the bank had a reputation for being a secret tax haven, prompting Rome prosecutors to launch in 2010 money-laundering investigations.

The Vatican Bank has 19,000 accounts held mostly by Vatican workers, charities, priests and nuns.