major French commercial bank operating a general-banking and foreign-exchange business worldwide. Headquarters are in Paris.

The bank was established in 1864 to provide general-banking and investment services. It was nationalized in 1946, when the state, acting on legislation passed the previous year, took over the central bank, the Banque de France (France, Banque de), and the four leading commercial banks. These banks accounted for half of all the assets and liabilities among French banks. It was not until 1987 that Société Générale was again privatized.

Société Générale made major acquisitions in 1998 with the purchase of the Japanese bank Yamaichi Capital Management as well as two U.S. investment firms, Barr Devlin and Cowen & Company (the latter was spun off in 2006). In the early 21st century, Société Générale extended its acquisitions to eastern Europe, buying the Czech bank Komerční Banka, among others. In early 2008 the bank experienced a loss of roughly $7.2 billion, which it blamed on a rogue trader.