After two fine years of double-digit growth, solidarity finance grew “only” by 7.37% in 2022 to reach 26.3 billion euros, reveals the latest annual edition of the FAIR solidarity finance barometer/ The cross. With 1.8 billion euros collected over one year, net asset flows from this branch of responsible investment thus fell by 3.3 billion euros compared to the previous year.
The exhaustion of the “windfall effect” caused by the Covid pandemic (which had made many savers aware of responsible projects), and, above all, the correction of the financial markets have significantly slowed down flows directed towards solidarity projects, despite a good momentum in the subscription of savers, driven in particular by more favorable regulations, distributors of life insurance contracts having since January 1, 2022 the obligation to offer at least one solidarity support in their contracts.
Dynamic subscriptions
Thus, despite this slowdown, the share represented by solidarity finance in French savings has nevertheless increased, from 0.41% to 0.45%. ” While households stopped oversaving after the health crisis and the financial markets declined, solidarity collection benefited from new labels (eleven new Finansol labeled products)strong subscriptions and the dynamism of a few specific productsnotes Frédéric Tiberghien, President of FAIR. Another interesting point this year, financial players are starting to invest again in environmental projects (+114%), whereas the latter had been left aside in recent years, in favor of social projects (housing / access to employment )”, he raises.
In detail, the collection of bank savings increased by 5.51%, that of employee savings by 8.51% and that directly collected by solidarity companies by more than 9%.
For this last channel, the dynamism was driven by a few major players who concentrate this savings (Habitat & Humanisme, France Active, Terre de Liens, LITA.CO, la Nef, Solifap, etc.).
For banking products – whose growth has fallen this year, from 38% in 2021 to 5.5% in 2022 – it is above all savings accounts that have lost ground (between -5% and -28% of outstandings according to the players) even if, quite paradoxically, at the same time, their outstandings increased overall by 7.4% to reach 2.9 billion euros in outstandings.
” Some players who outperformed in 2022: La Nef, Crédit Coopératif and Crédit Mutuel/CIC collected nearly 250 million euros alone. Bank savings collectors therefore had a mixed year where some managed to collect significantly, while others lost customers. “, decrypts FAIR.
On the side of undertakings for collective investment (which can be found in different tax envelopes, including unit-linked life insurance), the dynamic remained “good, although the traditional market is down in 2022”, thanks to the labeling of new products and subscriptions savers (+€730 million).
A growth ” mainly contributed by certain products such as Novaxia R or, to a lesser extent, certain products from Mirova, Amundi, and BNP Paribas AM, which saw an increase in their outstandings”. However, the vast majority of Finansol-labelled products experienced a negative market effect (-€400 million).
The same trend observed in terms of employee savings – which constitutes the first contribution to solidarity savings outstandings, at 15.3 billion euros – where the amounts of subscriptions were higher than the fall in the market.
DYNAMIC FUNDING with impact
While the growth in net flows has slowed down, financing carried out by solidarity products or companies continued to grow at a sustained pace (+22% compared to 2021): more than 841.5 million euros were thus provided in support of more than 1,590 projects with an environmental and social impact (compared to €699 million in 2021 for 1,350 projects).
According to data from FAIR, 80 microfinance institutions, agricultural cooperatives or social enterprises as well as 91 new farmers have been supported, 1,440 people rehoused and 8,381 additional households supplied with renewable electricity.