Since 2009, we had simply not seen such a score for the month of January. French savers strengthened their Livret A accounts by 9.27 billion euros, the Caisse des dépôts (CDC) said on Tuesday (February 21st), with deposits increased after Christmas and stimulated by the announcement of a rate of remuneration at 3 %.
The cumulative outstandings of the preferred placement of the French and the Sustainable and Solidarity Development Booklet (LDDS) thus reached the tidy sum of 520.9 billion euros on January 31, unheard of. The LDDS alone swelled by 1.95 billion euros last month.
Traditionally associated with New Year’s gifts, bonus payments and a time of lower spending contrasting with the month of December, the first month of the year is generally favorable for collection for regulated savings accounts. A fortiori when he benefits from the announcement of better remuneration to come, with an increase in the rate from 2% to 3% on February 1, as indicated in mid-January by the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire .
This announced revaluation is a good reason to start transferring part of the some 700 billion euros sleeping on current accounts in France to the Livret A savings accounts, according to the latest figures from the Banque de France published on Tuesday and closed at the end of September. . The still partial data from the Central Bank in the fourth quarter already show an outflow of 16.3 billion euros from sight deposits.
The competition is struggling to keep up. Among the returns announced since the beginning of the year by the managers of euro funds in life insurance, none has reached the 3% mark. The money deposited in the Livret A and LDDS savings accounts, capped at 22,950 euros and 12,000 euros respectively excluding capitalized interest, is guaranteed by the State, exempt from taxes and social security contributions. Withdrawals are totally free, free of charge and possible at any time.
The Livret A rate of return, the calculation of which depends on inflation, among other things, had already experienced two significant increases in 2022: from its floor of 0.5% to 1% on February 1, 2022 and then to 2% on August 1 .
Livrets A and LDDS had already swelled by 40 billion euros in outstandings last year, driven by large deposits and interest paid at the end of the year, the CDC announced on January 23. The filling margin is still significant: the more than 55 million Livret A savings accounts barely exceed a quarter of their capacity on average.
Managed jointly by the CDC and the banking networks, the Livret A is mainly used to finance social housing, while the LDDS is dedicated to the social and solidarity economy as well as to energy savings in housing. Bercy has the LDDS in its sights. It “is only sustainable and supportive in name,” said Bruno Le Maire when presenting a report by think tank The Shift Project on December 15.
He therefore pleaded for “a green savings product […] probably a little less liquid” than regulated savings investments, “with probably a slightly higher share of risk”.
The Livret A has more recently been invited into the nuclear debate: its use to finance a program of new reactors has recently been mentioned.
“We are reflecting with EDF and with the State on how to structure its financing”, declared on January 10 the director general of the CDC Éric Lombard, during a hearing at the finance committee of the National Assembly.
The cost of the program of six new generation EPR2 reactors is estimated by EDF at 51.7 billion euros (excluding financing costs), plus 4.6 billion in the event of difficulty in implementation.
