Societe Generale disclosed last week that it had recorded a 45% drop in new accounts in a sign that customers are being scared away by the biggest rogue trading scandal in history. Jerome Kervial

Six months ago the junior trader, was accused of losing almost €5 billion, SoGen; France’s second largest bank said it registered 23k new French accounts in the second quarter. The figure for the same period last year was 45k;

Does this signify waning confidence in the 144-year-old institution following its failure to prevent Jerome Kerviel from engaging in ‘unauthorised operations’ on an unprecedented scale. Perhaps?

Afterall SocGen has been widely criticised for ‘missing’ repeated alerts about the 31-year-old operator, who is accused of hiding his illegal deals in fictitious notes. The bank says it was misled by his devious behaviour.

Denial is always a powerful tool.