In June, households had deposited in their Livret A as much money as they had withdrawn. A rare occurrence since the start of the health crisis linked to Covid-19, the outstanding amount of this tax-free booklet had therefore not swelled before the summer, while the months of strong positive collection had followed one another almost without interruption since March 2020, driven by the various barriers to consumption and the uncertainties weighing on the health and economic situation.
If this balanced month of June foreshadowed an outflow for the rest of the summer, July thwarted the forecasts: the Livret A finally garnered no less than 1.15 billion euros, according to figures released on Monday August 23 by the Caisse des Dépôts. This is the net inflow – deposits minus withdrawals.
If we add the 250 million euros collected by the Livret de développement durable et solidaire (LDDS), which functions roughly like the Livret A (same rate of remuneration, same tax exemption, but different ceilings), of these two passbooks grew by 1.4 billion over one month.
Two booklets, 470.5 billion euros
Enough to reach a new record: 470.5 billion euros were in total placed on these passbooks on July 31, 2021 (344.5 billion on the Livret A and 126 billion on the LDDS).
Admittedly, with this 1.4 billion gathered, the result of July 2021 is lower than that of July 2020, marked by a collection of 2.49 billion; it is also lower than the average for the first quarter of the year (nearly 3.5 billion were collected on average monthly between January and June 2021) and the average collected in 2020 (almost 3 billion).
But the result remains nonetheless noticeable with regard to the months of pre-crisis July (the average of the collection on the two booklets of the months of July between 2013 and 2019 is 600 million), and especially with regard to sums already raised during the previous months: more than 22 billion euros since the beginning of this year, and some 51 billion since the end of February 2020, before the first confinement.
The remuneration of the Livret A and the LDDS does not change at 0.50%. And this despite the rise in inflation. The government, unsurprisingly, chose not to change it on 1er August and apply the calculation formula in force since early 2020 – a formula much less sensitive to inflation than the old one. This rate of 0.50% is its historic low, it is also now its “floor” level, below which it cannot fall, according to the rules applied since 2020.
0.50% for Livret A, 1% for LEP
While the rate of remuneration of the Livret A and the Livret développement durable et solidaire may be reviewed twice a year, on 1er August and 1er February, it has not changed this month and remains fixed at 0.50% net of income tax and social security contributions.
The popular savings account, reserved for the most modest, remains for its part remunerated at 1%, net there too. The remuneration of this last passbook must always be equal either to inflation or to the Livret A rate increased by 0.5 point – the best figure is used. As for the remuneration of the Livret Jeunes, it is freely set by the banks, but cannot be lower than that of the Livret A.