Jérôme Kerviel Mayor of Pont l'Abbé, Kerviel stood for a seat on the local council with the Union for a Popular Movement party but was not elected. Kerviel joined the middle office of 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, swaps, index futures and quantitative trading. Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, has described Kerviel as a "computer genius"; however, sources within Société
Jérôme Kerviel experts have expressed skepticism of the bank's account, saying that a pattern of closing out trades within the three-day cycle alleged could not be accomplished given the immense sums involved. Kerviel is not thought to have profited personally from the suspicious trades. Prosecutors say Kerviel has been cooperative with the investigation, and has told them his actions were also practiced by other traders in the company. Kerviel admits to exceeding his credit limits, but claims he was working to increase bank profits. He told authorities that the bank was happy with his previous year's performance, and was expecting to be