The comparisons between the trading losses at Société Générale and those which caused the collapse of Barings in 1995 are striking.

Video: What went wrong?

John Gapper talks about the comparisons with Barings

In both cases, a young man responsible for trading exchange-traded equity futures on behalf of the bank ended up accumulating a big hidden position that the bank did not know about. In the Barings case, the trader was Nick Leeson, who was a trader on the floor of the Simex derivatives exchange in Singapore.