chart of the week
While solidarity savings remain a drop in the bucket of household financial assets – 0.41% – their weight has continued to grow over the years. In 2021, the total amount of sums invested in solidarity products thus increased by 26.6%, to reach 24.5 billion euros as of December 31, according to the 20e edition of the FAIR-La Croix solidarity finance barometer, published this Tuesday, June 7.
A new record in terms of the level of outstandings, but also an increase in absolute value (+€5.1 billion). These amounts take into account savings products bearing the Finansol label as well as all solidarity employee savings funds, whether or not they are stamped Finansol.
According to the FAIR association (acronym for “finance, accompany, impact, gather”), which manages this Finansol label and intends to promote a “for a better social and environmental impact”, solidarity savings made it possible, last year, to generate 699 million euros in financing to support more than 1,350 projects with a social or environmental impact. And to pay 4.3 million euros in donations to 125 associations.
Donations and project financing
Because two mechanisms come into play for the products of the solidarity finance family.
On the one hand, a principle of sharing, which is similar to a donation: it often involves paying an association all or part of the interest from its bank book. On the other hand, a financing mechanism, when the financial institution uses at least part of the money invested by savers to finance, through loans or equity investments, structures acting for employment, housing , ecology, entrepreneurship in developing countries, etc. Solidarity products can fall under one of these logics, or both.
How are the good figures for 2021 explained? The number of Finansol labeled products increased from 166 to 178 over one year, “and among the newcomers are some media with significant outstandings”, notes Jon Sallé, head of the social impact finance observatory at FAIR. For example, in the field of life insurance, the solidarity unit of account Novaxia R, with its 190 million euros in assets at the end of 2021 (units of account are investment vehicles with non-guaranteed capital) .
And savers responded, with 1.2 million new product subscriptions recorded over the year (compared to 837,000 in 2020).
Above all, solidarity finance “benefited from the markets [boursiers] bulls », underlines Frédéric Tiberghien, president of FAIR, in a press release.
In addition to this mechanical impact on outstandings, he also cites the effect of measures resulting from the Pacte law (Action plan for the growth and transformation of companies) of 2019: those aimed at developing employee savings, as well as new obligations of insurers in terms of offering solidarity products within life insurance. These obligations should mainly impact the figures for 2022, since, since 1er last January, all new life insurance contracts must include at least one solidarity unit of account.
In detail, while employee savings still represent the majority (57.5%) of solidarity finance outstandings, bank savings weigh more and more heavily from year to year: they now represent 39% of outstandings. totals (it was 31% at the end of 2018). This bank savings consists, in particular, of solidarity savings accounts (their outstandings increased by 19% in 2021), solidarity life insurance (+ 49%) and investment funds (collective investment organizations, OPCs) solidarity (+49%).
Third component of solidarity savings (it is a little less than 4% of the total sums invested “solidarity”), the savings collected directly by solidarity companies, essentially by the sale of unlisted shares, records for its part an increase in outstandings of 15% in 2021, as in 2020.