The bank was founded by a group of industrialists and financiers during the second empire, on May 4, 1864. The bank's first chairman was the prominent industrialist Eugène Schneider (1805–1875) followed by Edward Blount, a Scotsman. The company started to hire employees and establish offices. Coverage of France went ahead at a steady rate. By 1870, the bank had 15 branches in Paris and 32 in the rest of France. It set up a permanent office in London in 1871. At the beginning, the bank used its own resources almost entirely for both financial and banking operations. In 1871, Société Générale moved into the public French issues market with a national debenture loan launched to cover the war indemnity stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfurt. In 1886, Société Générale was part of the bank consortium (along with the Franco-Egyptian Bank and the Crédit Industriel et Commercial) that financed the construction of the Eiffel Tower.
Today, Société Générale S.A. is a French multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Paris. The company is a universal bank and has divisions supporting French Networks, Global Transaction Banking, International Retail Banking, Financial services, Corporate and Investment Banking, Private Banking, Asset Management and Securities Services. Société Générale is France's third largest bank by total assets, sixth largest in Europe or seventeenth by market capitalization. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. Société Générale's head office is in the Tours Société Générale in the business district of La Défense in the city of Nanterre, west of Paris. The company moved there in June 1995 from the former head office along Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The head office has 7,000 employees. The former head office remains as the company's registered office. In 2015, Standard Ethics Aei has given a rating to Société Générale in order to include it in its Standard Ethics French Index.