Vatican announces new investment policy amid financial scandal News
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Vatican announces new investment policy amid financial scandal

The Vatican Tuesday announced a new investment policy, and the entity will close all of its foreign investment accounts. The new policy governs the ethical standard for investments, restricting investments that don’t “contribut[e] to a more just and sustainable world.”

The guidelines require that all foreign investment accounts be consolidated into one account in APSA, the Vatican state bank. This account will be overseen by the newly formed Vatican Investment Committee, which will enforce all ethical standards and review transactions. The policy will prioritize sustainable investments in companies that align with the Vatican’s ethical standards and ban investment in companies that deal with pornography, gambling, weapons, defense and abortion. The Vatican will also divest from laboratories or pharmaceutical companies that make contraceptives or work with embryonic stem cells.

The guidelines come on the heels of a series of ongoing financial scandals within the Vatican. Brokers Raffaele Mincione and Gianluigi Torzi are involved in continuing corruption trials over an investment that lost the Vatican over 140 million euros. The case also implicated former high level Vatican official Cardinal Angelo Becciu.

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