This is unheard of since 2009: in the month of January alone, the amounts allocated to the livret A and the sustainable and solidarity development primer (LDDS) increased by more than 11 billion euros.
It is true that the month of January is traditionally the month in which the amounts set aside are the highest. Premiums and thirteenth month, for those who receive them, having come to inflate the balance of bank accounts. But if this year the net collection (that is, the difference between the amounts deposited and the withdrawals) reached 9,250 million euros for the livret A and almost 2,000 million for the LDDS, it is most likely that savers will appreciate the prospect of a Rate of 3% as of February 1.
More money in the A brochures but less elsewhere
However, this does not mean that the French can still save as much as during the Covid crisis. Inflation got through it. And these figures in booklet A are a bit misleading. When we look at the data published by the Banque de France, which has access to all the amounts that households have in their different accounts, passbooks, life insurance, securities account or PEA, we can clearly see that, as a whole, the French no longer “over-saving”.
Between the third quarter of 2019 and 2021, the total value of the financial assets they owned had gone from 5,267 to 5,922 million euros. In the third quarter of 2022, it amounted to only 5.692 billion euros. Decline attributable in part to the fall in stock markets at the start of the war in Ukraine, but also to the fact that more households were forced to reduce the part of their income set aside or, for those most affected by inflation , get down in your wool stockings.
Life insurance contracts in euros are less attractive
If the French put more money in their livret A, it is therefore that they put less in the other investments at their disposal. Life insurance is the investment that suffers the most. Between 2019 and 2022, the Banque de France points out that the outstanding balance of life insurance contracts in euros fell from 1,723 to 1,436 billion euros, a drop of 17%.
While in the same period, the amounts invested by households in regulated savings products (passbook A, LDDS, popular savings passbook, PEL, etc.) increased by 12% to reach 862,000 million euros in the third quarter of 2022.
And with their much more attractive rates this year, the Livret A, LDDS and LEP booklets risk pushing more savers to ditch, at least occasionally, life insurance. Especially since savings accounts are the most immediately available savings out there. A great advantage in this time of uncertainty.
Source: BFM TV
