SocGen scandal hurts banking sector image: Intesa CEO

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The dealing scandal at Societe Generale has dealt a new blow to the image of the banking industry already reeling from the subprime crisis, the head of Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo said.

"It's something that further damages the image of banking at a time when people are already very concerned about risks," chief executive Corrado Passera told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

SocGen said a junior employee on its derivatives trading desk earning less than 100,000 euros a year had confessed to carrying out a sophisticated fraud, triggering 4.9 billion euros in losses as his disastrous trades were cancelled in wildly volatile markets. It said it did not know where the trader was.