I read an article in the finance section recently about fines being dished out to stockbrokers who failed to separate their clients' money from their own.

City financial watchdog The Financial Services Authority (FSA) say that Close Investments and Rowan Dartington put their investors' at risk during the financial crisis, and fined them £98,000 and £511,000 respectively.

JP Morgan were hit with a record £33.3 million ($48.2 million) fine this month for similar breaches as part of a wider investigation into how banks and financiers are protecting their clients' money.

It's a scary business - imagine you'd put loads of your personal money or your life savings in one of these companies hoping for a good return? It'd certainly give you a bit of a fright to hear that they were having problems like that!

Photo: Tax_Rebate (Flickr)