Household financial savings have accelerated since the Covid-19 crisis, according to a calculation by the Banque de France, generating a “surplus” of 157 billion euros in three years compared to the trend observed before 2020.
Placed mainly in bank deposits in 2020 and 2021, “part of this savings has been reallocated since the second half of 2022 to higher-yield financial investments, in particular to regulated savings products that now the rise in interest rates makes attractive” . points out the central bank in a quarterly note stopped at the end of December, published on Wednesday.
The outstanding amount of Livrets A and Livrets de développement durable et solidaire (LDDS), whose rate is now 3%, has earned, for example, 40 billion euros in the last year alone, according to the Caisse des dépôts (CDC). . Life insurance, for its part, benefited in a contrasting way from this gain in 2022: investments in unit-linked (UA), potentially more profitable, but also more risky, present net inflows (difference between deposits and withdrawals) of 38.9 billion euros when the euro funds, with guaranteed capital, suffered a net outflow of 10.7 billion euros.
Increase in loans to large companies
In both cases, the market value of the assets suffered greatly last year. That of funds in euros was devalued by nearly 250,000 million euros, going from 1,686,000 million euros at the end of 2021 to 1,436,000 million euros at the end of 2022. This situation is linked to the rise in rates central bank benchmark, trailing new bond yields behind it. Logically, those acquired before the rate hike are discounted, with lower yields than the new ones and which fill the portfolios of life insurers.
The value of CUs fell from €485 billion at the end of 2021 to €449 billion at the end of 2022, due to poor market performance. Combining all the investments, the total financial savings of households amounted to just over 6,000 million euros at the end of last year.
On the business side, the Banque de France note highlights an 8.4% increase in outstanding net debt after two years of stability, “due in particular to the sustained increase in loans to large companies”, a trend that continues in January . 2023, according to the first available data. The outstanding net debt of non-financial corporations reached 1,112.3 million euros at the end of last December.
Source: BFM TV
