2008 Société Générale trading loss the bank. Kerviel joined the middle offices in the bank Société Générale in the summer of 2000, working in its compliance department. In 2005 he was promoted to the bank's Delta One products team in Paris where he was a junior trader. Société Générale’s Delta One business includes program trading, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), swaps, index and quantitative trading. Bank officials claim that throughout 2007, Kerviel had been trading profitably in anticipation of falling market prices; however, they have accused him of exceeding his authority to engage in unauthorized trades totaling as much as €49.9 billion, a figure far higher than
Jérôme Kerviel over three days of trading beginning 2008, a period after which the market experienced a large drop in equity indices, and losses attributed are estimated at (). The bank claimed Kerviel "had taken massive fraudulent directional positions in 2007 and 2008 far beyond his limited authority" and that the trades involved European stock index futures. Though bank officials say Kerviel apparently worked alone, skeptics question how unauthorized trading of this magnitude could go unnoticed. Kerviel's unassuming background and position have heightened the skepticism that he worked alone. Some analysts suggest that unauthorised trading of this scale may have gone unnoticed