The ceiling of the Livret d’epargne populaire, or LEP, will rise from 7,700 euros to 10,000 euros this fall, as announced by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire last week. What will happen to LEP holders who have already exceeded the cap at the annual interest game?
Questions from Sylvie, Guy, Bernard…
Sylvie: In the case where a booklet has received the maximum of 7700 euros and that the interests have increased the sum up to 9000 euros… How much can we add to it? Only 1000 or 2300euros?
Guy: My LEP being at 10,079 euros to date following the accumulation of interest (…) Could I put in an additional 2,300 euros, to reach the new deposit limit of 10,000 euros, the difference being only interest over the years?
Bernard: I recently exceeded 10,000 euros! I can see coming that I will be rewarded for my “loyalty” to LEP: “Oh no, you have already exceeded 10,000 euros!” Can you please confirm or deny my “bad feeling”?
No, Sylvie, Bernard and Guy, you will not be able to pay 2300euros more on your LEP. Here is how the Monetary and Financial Code sets the current ceiling, Article D221-46: The ceiling on sums that can be deposited in a popular savings account is set at 7,700 euros. A provision supplemented by article R221-50: Capitalization (…) may increase the amount of the account beyond the ceiling of authorized deposits (…).
The capitalization (…) can bring the amount of the account beyond the ceiling of authorized deposits (…).
Clearly, the annual capitalization certainly allows you to exceed the ceiling. But not a payment coming after the payment of this interest. As its name suggests, annual interest capitalization turns your interest into capital… but when it comes to making new payments, the bank looks at your total savings (payments + capitalized interest) photographs the date of your new paymentand not the sum of your payments since the opening of your account.
8799 euros: average balance of nearly 4 million LEP at the ceiling
Your bad feeling, Bernard, the Banque de France has confirmed it MoneyVox: the new ceiling will not allow all LEPs at the ceiling to be topped up with an additional 2,300 euros.
Concretely, for Bernard and Guy whose LEP has already exceeded 10,000 euros, it will not be possible to pay more into their savings account despite the increase in the ceiling.
For Sylvie, who has 9,000 euros on her LEP (including 1,300 euros in capitalized interest since she reached the current ceiling), the revision of the ceiling will allow her to pay 1,000 euros more. And not 2300 euros.
You are not the only ones in this situation: 47% of LEPs have therefore already exceeded – through the game of the annual capitalization of interest – the 7700 euros according to the 2023 report of the Observatory of regulated savings, published Tuesday July 18.
On average, the average outstanding amount of LEPs above the ceiling is 8,799 euros at the end of 2022, details the Banque de France MoneyVox: 3.89 million LEPs exceeded the ceiling at the end of 2022, for a corresponding outstanding amount of 34.21 billion euros .