Paris - Societe Generale head Daniel Bouton will step down from day-to-day operations, France's second-largest bank said Thursday night, three months after a massive banking fraud scandal broke.

The jobs of chairman and chief executive officer will be split as of May 12, the bank said. Bouton will stay on as chairman but current finance chief Frederic Oudea will become the new CEO.

Securities trader Jerome Kerviel is being investigated for costing the bank some 4.9 billion euros (7.8 billion dollars) in unauthorized transactions.

Other bank employees could yet be implicated in the scandal and Bouton had long been under pressure to resign, including from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bouton himself has consistently denied any responsibility for the scandal and blamed Kerviel's actions alone. But the bank said the idea of separating the jobs of CEO and chairman came from Bouton himself. (dpa)