The year 2023 began on Friday the 13th for Livret A. That day, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, announced on the 1 p.m. newspaper of France 2 that the rate of remuneration would increase from 2% to 3 % to 1er February, a level that had not been reached for… fourteen years. Enough to boost (further) the attractiveness of the investment, which then followed several exceptional months.
Collection clearly stalled in the fall before regaining momentum in December (+ 2 billion euros), allowing Livret A to set a new record for net collection over the year (deposits, minus withdrawals). ), at 28.68 billion euros. Knowing that the records have been recorded since 2009, the year the Livret A was generalized to all banks, the Caisse des Dépôts statistics began that year.
In total, its outstanding amount increased by almost 40 billion compared to the end of 2022, the effect of this unprecedented collection and around 11 billion in gains (interest) garnered by savers. By adding the figures from the Sustainable and Solidarity Development Booklet (LDDS), the overall outstanding amount is now close to 565 billion euros.
“In addition to the interest rate effect, collections were driven, particularly in the first part of the year, by inflation, which encourages households to save”, notes Philippe Crevel, founder of the Savings Circle. In inflationary periods, the latter are in fact encouraged to play the savings card more both to maintain their current purchasing power in the future and to “prevent their assets from losing value”explains Eric Buffandeau, deputy director of studies, monitoring and forecasting at BPCE.
If the Livret A benefited in 2023 from a very favorable rate compared to previous years, savers could have hoped for more. Indeed, the legal calculation formula for the rate, which takes into account half inflation and half short-term interbank rates, was never applied last year. After setting the rate at 3% from February 2023, instead of the 3.3% to which the formula resulted, Bercy decided, from August 2023, to freeze the rate until January 2025, officially to ensure “stability” And ” visibility “ to savers.
Nuclear financing
The controversy over setting the rate was accompanied, throughout the year, by heated debates on the use that should be made of these savings. Should it help finance the construction of new nuclear reactors? Eric Lombard, director of the Caisse des Dépôts, put the subject on the table in January 2023 by explaining that the sums placed in the Livret A, the LDDS and the Livret d’épargne populaire (LEP) could “further finance the transformation of our energy production system”.
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