what rate for the housing savings plan in 2023?

It is a certainty: the performance of the new housing savings plans (PEL) will increase on 1 January next, for the first time in more than six years. Of how much? Here is how it will be calculated.

77 months of immobility: it’s not a record for the PEL, but it’s still quite a lease. The last time the housing savings plan rate changed was August 1, 2016, and that was not good news. After going from 2.50% to 2% then 1.50% in a few months, its yield fell to 1%, the lowest in its history.

This trend will be reversed on January 1st. If the Banque de France, in charge of calculating the rates of regulated savings products, indicates MoneyVox does not have any information as to an increase, or not, of this rate, there is little room for doubt: the rate for new PELs, those opened from 1 January next, will increase. And only that of the new PELs. Because, it must be remembered, the PEL is unique in that the rate displayed at the opening is fixed and guaranteed for its entire lifespan.

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How is the PEL rate calculated?

This so-called generational rate is not the only originality of the PEL in the landscape of regulated savings. The way in which the Banque de France calculates this remuneration is also. Unlike the Livret A and its satellites (LDDS, LEP, etc.), the PEL is not indexed to the evolution of inflation and interbank rates, but to that of money market rates (swap rate 2, 5 and 10 years).

However, these benchmark indices, also used by credit institutions to set their interest rates, have risen sharply in recent months. The 5-year swap rate, which accounts for 70% in the calculation formula, has thus increased, on a monthly average, from 0.229% in January 2022 to 2.719% in November, according to the site investing.com.

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Why will the increase take place on January 1?

Everything is therefore in place for the Banque de France to propose an increase in the rate of future PELs, for an implementation from January 1, 2023. Because this is another originality of the PEL compared to other regulated savings products: its rate is not updated only once a yearat the beginning of the year, when that of the Livret A can change several times, on February 1 and August 1, or even on May 1 and November 1 in exceptional circumstances.

The good news should also be quickly formalized. According to the judgment (1) which governs the rules for setting rates for settlement savings products, it must be calculated no later than December 5, ie next Monday, on the basis of the average swap rate for the month of November.

What will be the rate of future PELs?

It remains to be seen what this new rate will be. A recent publication by the Banque de France gives us a clue. Each month (2)the monetary institution publishes, in fact, the result of the PEL rate calculation formula. In September, the last figure published, it stood at 1.91%. Except for a sudden increase in the benchmark indices, the rate for new PELs should therefore be set at 2%by virtue of the rule of rounding up to the quarter of a point.

Source: Banque de France, interest rate on bank deposits, September 2022

A final reminder: this 2% will be a gross remuneration. Since 2018, the interests of the PEL are, in fact, taxed. Its yield will be 1.40%, net of flat tax. Insufficient, therefore, to catch up with the Livret A, whose rate should approach 3% from February 2023, but sufficient to restore some attractiveness to it. Because the ELP, it must be remembered, was not designed as a pure savings product, but as a investment intended to help French households prepare, in the medium term, for a property purchase. A primary vocation that the transition to 2% should restore.

Who was interested in opening a new 2% PEL?

(1) Order of January 27, 2021 relating to interest rates for regulated savings products. (2) Rate of interest on bank deposits

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