Italy

Italian police asked Switzerland information about 10000 banking clients

On Thursday, Italy’s tax police (GdF) have asked the Swiss authorities for information regarding Italians that deposited a total of €6.7 billion ($8 billion) in the country.

The police said in a statement the move, which concerned Italian citizens holding 9,953 financial positions in Switzerland, followed an investigation that last year led to a tax settlement deal between Italy and Credit Suisse.

The tax investigation started in 2014, which didn’t involved the local branch. Then in 2015 the second part of investigation startd and it was over an alleged fraudulent system used by the bank to transfer money offshore, mainly through the use of insurance policies.

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EU Commission approved MPS bailout, Bank cuts 5500 jobs

The European Commission approved a €5.4 billion ($6.1 billion) state bailout of Italy’s Monte dei Paschi bank on Tuesday, allowing the Italian government to recapitalize and restructure the troubled lender. The gereen light came after the in-principle accord reached on June 1 by Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

The European Union’s executive arm said in a statement that it had approved the capital injection into Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, or MPS, under the bloc’s state aid and bank resolution rules after the lender agreed to undergo a drastic restructuring.

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Italy: Anti-Money laundering unit says "dirty" transactions boomed in 2016

Over 100,000 suspicious financial transactions were flagged in Italy in 2016, the Bank of Italy’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) said Monday. Of these, 619 transactions were flagged as possible terrorist financing, an 127 percent increase compared to 2015, Claudio Clemente, Director of the FIU reported this at the presentation of the Annual Report on the Unit’s activities in 2016.
According to the report, 37% of the suspicious transactions were related to individuals under investigation or otherwise flagged by authorities, and about one-fifth were related to non-profit organizations that were "mostly linked to local immigrant communities".

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Ticino-Italy tax agreement makes easier work permit for cross-border workers

A new tax agreement between Ticino and Italy will not obliged italian cross-border workers, known as frontalieri, to systematically provide a copy of their police record in order to secure a work or residence permit.
The requirement was imposed by the Italian-speaking canton in 2015; now, they will be expected to show any criminal record on a voluntary basis, while the canton will reserve the right to ask for it, as Ticino’s government said in a statement.

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Apple Pay lands in Italy

Apple Pay is now available in Italy, and iPhone users in the country are able to add eligible credit and debit cards to the Wallet app for use with Apple’s payments service in stores and online.

In Italy, Apple Pay is launching with support for Carrefour bank and UniCredit, as well as Boon prepay. The site says support for additional banks will be added later this year.

Rumors of Apple Pay’s expansion to Italy have been circulating for several weeks as Apple worked to add support for its payments service in the country, and the service has been listed as "Coming Soon" on the Apple Pay Italy site since March.

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WhatsApp fined by italian watchdog for sharing data with

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) imposed a 3-million-euro ($3.2 million) fine on WhatsApp messaging service for allegedly forcing its users to share their personal data with its parent company Facebook, the agency said in a statement Friday.

All 28 European Union data protection authorities asked Whatsapp last year to stop sharing users’ data with Facebook due to doubts over the validity of users’ consent. The Italian agency said the application led users to believe they would not have been able to continue using the service unless they agreed to terms including sharing personal data.

Whatsapp did not immediately respond to an email asking for comment on the fine. The amount is lower than the maximum €5 million the agency could have levied.

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Draghi: Italexit ? It’s only a fantasy tale

The idea of Italy leaving the eurozone, or ‘Italexit’, "does not have the slightest basis" in fact, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Wednesday in a verbal tussle with a Dutch MP. Draghi repeated that the euro is "irrevocable, and that’s what the Treaty says".

Confronted with the possibility of the Netherlands quitting Europe’s monetary union by Eurosceptic MP Thierry Baudet, an angry Mr Draghi said: “The euro is irrevocable. This is the treaty. I will not speculate on something that has no basis.”

Highlighting the ECB’s role in the eurozone’s economic recovery, he said policies had helped create 4.5m jobs. “That’s the reality, the rest is speculation." In other remarks, Draghi said it was "up to the eurozone countries to prepare for the end of quantitative easing".

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Another scandal for BSI: italian branches will be closed?

EFG International said Italy’s central bank wants it out of Milan and Como in connection with alleged compliance weaknesses at recently-acquired Banca della Svizzera Italiana, or BSI.

The Zurich-based private bank, under Greek Latsis family control, referred it is in close contact with Banca d’Italia over the closing of its BSI acquisition, and in a statement late on Friday, it said: "EFG International announces that BSI has received a notification by Banca d’Italia requesting the implementation of certain measures, which may result in a closure of the BSI offices in Milan and Como."

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