FSA fines Seymour Pierce for missing £150,000 theft

Seymour Pierce failed to notice the theft of about £150,000 from the firm's internal and private client accounts in 36 separate transactions. The illegal activity was only discovered by chance when the employee involved left and his replacement noticed serious accounting discrepancies. Several of the illegal transactions involved hijacking existing accounts to make unauthorised changes to clients' name, address, bank account and payment instructions on existing accounts. The employee also took advantage of dormant accounts, and in one instance transferred a personal trading loss in...