You may have seen reports of trading losses incurred by Société Générale resulting from fraudulent trading activity in 2007 / early 2008 by a trader in charge of hedging activities, in addition to the impact of losses relating to sub-prime mortgages in the US. Société Générale has today issued a press release commenting on these issues.

Customers will be reassured to know that, whilst a part of the Société Générale group, Selftrade is a separate business, wholly owned by Boursorama SA which is independent and separately quoted on Euronext: neither our business nor that of Boursorama is directly affected by these announcements.

Neither Selftrade nor Boursorama is exposed to similar risks to those that have led to the reported losses as they do not trade in the markets on their own account: all deals transacted are on behalf of customers, on their specific instructions, using that customer's assets.

Additionally, and in line with FSA regulations, Selftrade's own assets are segregated from those of our customers. Customer investments are held in separate nominee name and our customers have additional protection under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

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