Societe Generale acknowledged on Tuesday an “incident” last year involving two of its traders in Hong Kong, who have since left the company, confirming information from the financial agency Bloomberg.
The bank’s internal control services identified an isolated incident in 2023, which had no impact and led to appropriate corrective measures, a bank spokesperson told AFP.
These two Hong Kong bass traders took positions on the Indian market that they were not authorized to take and which the bank was late to detect. This is not an excess of the amount, as in the case of the Kerviel affair, but a risk taken on the type of investments. In the worst case, these positions could have caused the bank to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, Bloomberg claims, citing an unnamed source.
The specter of the Kerviel affair
Trading incidents bring back bad memories at Socit Générale. In 2008, transactions carried out by trader Jrme Kerviel caused a loss of 4.9 billion euros in the bank’s accounts. Socit Generale will present its first quarter results on Friday.
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