Jérôme Kerviel, the Société Générale's trader at the centre of the bank’s multibillion dollar loss, told French news agency Agence France Presse yesterday, he accepted ‘his share of responsibility’ for the bank's €4.9bn (£3.7bn) losses, but refused to be alone to shoulder the blame.

‘I never had any personal ambition in this affair,’ he said. ‘The aim was to earn money for the bank. You lose your sense of the sums involved when you are in this kind of work. It's disembodied. You get a bit carried away.’

French prosecutors have accused Kerviel of breach of trust, falsifying documents and breaching computer security.

A report handed to French finance minister Christine Lagarde on Monday noted SocGen's risk management and internal controls were inadequate. This cast new light on the claim that the losses were the work of a single rogue trader, The Guardian reports.

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