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 to collection for regulated savings accounts.

A fortiori when they benefit from the announcement of better remuneration to come, with a rise in the rate of 2% to 3% on February 1, as indicated in mid-January by the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Mayor.

A good reason to start transferring part of the some 700 billion euros sleeping in current accounts in France, 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 demand deposits.

“Any announcement of an increase causes an increase in collection which lasts between two and three months”, underlines in a note Philippe Crevel, director of the Circle of savings, but “the rebound of January 2023 is distinguished by its strength”.

The competition is struggling to keep up: among the returns announced since the beginning of the year by managers of euro funds in life insurance, none has reached the 3% mark.

The money deposited in Livret A and LDDS 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 remuneration rate, the calculation of which depends among other things on inflation, had already experienced two significant increases in 2022: from its floor of 0.5% to 1% on February 1, 2022, then to 2% on February 1, 2022. august.

LDDS in the viewfinder

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 23 January.

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 lasting and united in name", declared Bruno Le Maire during the presentation of a report by the "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 been invited more recently in the debate on nuclear power: its contribution to finance a program of new reactors has recently been mentioned.

“We are thinking with EDF and with the State on how to structure its financing,” CDC director general Éric Lombard said on January 10 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.

© 2023 AFP