Between November 2007 and February 2010, the French bank's London branch failed to submit accurate reports for around 80% of its reportable transactions, across all of its asset classes, says the watchdog.

The black hole in the bank's reporting is believed to have partially stemmed from faulty data standards, including: missing Market Identifier Codes; flakey trade references; erroneous counter-party codes and poor instrument descriptions.

In total SocGen failed to report, or inaccurately reported, 18.8 million of its 23.5 million reportable transactions - despite the FSA sending repeated reminders to firms of their obligations.

These obligations require companies to ensure they submit data for reportable transactions by close of business the day after a trade is executed. The FSA uses this data to detect and investigate suspected market abuse including insider trading and market manipulation.

SocGen also breached FSA rules by failing to retain and have available all relevant transaction reporting data. Firms must keep all data related to financial transactions and make it available to the body for at least five years.



Margaret Cole, director, enforcement and financial crime, says: "This failure is a serious breach of our rules as it can have a damaging impact on our ability to detect and investigate suspected market abuse. Firms and their management must ensure they submit quality transaction reporting data and we encourage all firms to review the integrity of this data on a regular basis."

SocGen has now commissioned a formal review of its processes and received a 30% discount on the fine for agreeing to settle at an early stage, bringing it down from £2.25 million.

The bank joins Barclays, Credit Suisse, Getco, Instinet and Commerzbank in being fined for transaction reporting failures in the last 12 months.