Vatican rewrites anti-money laundering, terror finance law to comply

The Vatican has rewritten its 2010 anti-money laundering law after European inspectors found that it didn’t fully meet their tough standards to combat the financing of terrorism.

The new law, a copy of which was obtained Friday, requires the Vatican to create a list of terror organizations based on the one issued by the United Nations and requires the Vatican to enter into agreements with other countries to exchange financial information.

The Holy See has been working for years to comply with European Union norms on money-laundering and terror financing in a bid to shed its image as a secrecy-obsessed tax haven and join the so-called “white list” of countries that share tax information to crack down on tax cheats.