The new Livret A rate, which depends in particular on the level of inflation, will reach 3% from 1er February 2023, a level unprecedented since 2009.
SourceAFP
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Lhe Governor of the Banque de France on Friday proposed to the Minister for the Economy and Finance to increase to 1er February the Livret A rate from 2% to 3%, a level unprecedented since 2009, but still well below inflation. Bruno Le Maire confirmed the increase in this rate at the start of the afternoon. This proposal is the result of a slight downward revision, François Villeroy de Galhau invoking in a press release “exceptional circumstances” to spare the finances of social housing, whose loans are often indexed to this rate.
Without rounding, the calculation formula taking into account inflation on the one hand – it reached 5.9% in December according to the latest INSEE figures published on Friday – and on the other hand the interbank rates, at which the banks are trading short-term money, would have pushed the rate to 3.3%. If they are validated by Bruno Le Maire, who must speak in the 1 p.m. newspaper on France 2, the 3% will be applicable from 1er February to some 55 million booklet A, as well as the Sustainable and Solidarity Development Booklet (LDDS). This “already represents a significant increase”, specifies the central bank in a press release, wishing “that the rate movements of the livret A remain progressive rather than too volatile, and this upwards as a potentially downward day”.
“2 million openings in 2022”
The 500 billion euros deposited by the French on these two products, most of which is centralized by the Caisse des dépôts (CDC), are intended in part to finance social housing, the social and solidarity economy or the savings energy in homes. If the increase in the rate is good news for savers, it is therefore less well received by certain public actors whose loans with the CDC are often indexed on this rate. The Livret A passbook rate, still at its lowest level of 0.5% a year ago, had doubled for the first time on the 1er February 2022 then again on 1er August, to reach 2%.READ ALSOYour money – Which liquid investments will be more profitable in 2023?
As for the rate of the People’s Savings Book (LEP), reserved for the most modest, it should jump from 4.6% to 6.1%, a good deal for a public not always in a position to be able to save. The Banque de France “strongly supports this instrument whose simplification of opening procedures, promotion and remuneration have led to more than 2 million openings in 2022”, she explains. “We will be the only country in Europe which will offer its compatriots a guaranteed savings account at a rate higher than inflation,” the Minister of the Economy declared on France 2.