The Financial Services Authority, the UK regulator, has fined Christchurch Investment Management, a small firm specialising in financial planning and portfolio management, £26,600 (about $43,000) and its compliance officer David Thornberry £11,550 for failings in relation to the protection of client money.

The FSA has also banned Thornberry from acting as a compliance officer or from having responsibility for client assets.  This is the first time the FSA has prohibited an individual from having responsibility for client assets.

Christchurch and Thornberry had insufficient knowledge and oversight of compliance with the FSA's client money rules, failing to apply the correct standard of daily internal reconciliations of client money balances.