After the canon rates for the year 2023 for the Popular Savings Booklet or even the Livret A, the year 2024 looks less favorable for the remuneration of savers. Here’s what awaits you from January 1st.
2024 will be a year of transition for the rates of your regulated savings products. Let’s start with some good news. Home savings plans (PEL) opened from January 1 will now yield 2.25%, compared to 2% until now.
One more increase after that recorded in 2023, unprecedented for 22 years, due to the increase in money market rates linked to the policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) to curb the rise in prices. Please note, PEL remuneration is gross. In fact, interest is now taxed at 30%. The new PEL will therefore earn you 1.575% net per year, compared to 1.40% this year.
A blocked rate for Livret A
What about other investments guaranteed by the State? No suspense for the Livret A held by more than 55 million individuals. Its rate, which was multiplied in one year, going from 0.5% in 2022 to 3% last February, will not change in 2024. The government has decided to freeze the remuneration of the Livret A until January 2025. This will give security, stability, visibility for holders of a Livret A, explained Bruno Le Maire last July to justify his decision, which is also the subject of an appeal before the council of State.
For the moment, maintaining the Livret A rate at 3% is a bad deal for households since it could have increased to 4.1% on August 1st due in particular to the rise in prices. Following the Livret A calculation formula, its theoretical rate was still 4% in November.
Livret A: how much interest have you lost in 2023 with the 3% locked rate?
In a normal period, the next chance to revise the remuneration of Livret A would have been mid-January for application on February 1, 2024. And the calculation formula would therefore most certainly have led to a rate higher than 3%. For its part, the Livret Sustainable and Inclusive Development (LDDS) also has a rate blocked at 3% until next year since its remuneration follows that of the Livret A.
Livret A: how much interest will you earn in 2023?
Bad news for the LEP rate
As for the Popular Savings Booklet (LEP), whose remuneration is aligned with half-yearly inflation, its rate risks falling during its next revision on February 1, 2024. To the extent that inflation slows, it risks going from 6% to 4%. Indeed, according to the latest projections from INSEE, average inflation should fall to around 4%.
But that’s not all. INSEE revealed the trend for the first half of 2024. And average inflation should reach 2.5%. As a result, we can fear, a priori, that the LEP rate will also drop to 2.5% during the next summer. Fortunately for the 10 million French people who have a LEP (out of the 18 million who are eligible), its rate cannot fall below that of the Livret A increased by 0.5 points. In other words, the Livret A rate is as much as 3%, that of the LEP will not go below 3.5% in 2024.