2023-08-07 14:48:45
With the passbook A rate frozen well below inflation, the popular savings account (LEP) should benefit from the passage of its ceiling to 10,000 euros this fall.
While the government has chosen to follow the recommendation of the Banque de France by not respecting the rule for calculating the rate of livret A, which will be maintained at 3% for 18 months, more and more savers are falling back on the THE P.
The now aptly named popular savings account actually yields twice as much: 6%, with no tax payable on the interest paid by the bank where it was opened. The number of holders of popular savings accounts thus made a spectacular leap last year: +24.9%.
9 million holders for 18.6 million eligible people
Unsurprisingly, the enthusiasm of savers authorized to open one continued this year. We have thus gone from just under 7 million holders at the end of 2021 to 9 million last February, according to the latest figures made public by the Banque de France in its annual report on regulated savings.
This figure of nine million must be put into perspective. We remain well below the number of people whose income is below the ceiling from which we no longer have the right to open one. According to figures from the tax administration, 18.6 million taxpayers are now eligible for the LEP.
The average balance on a LEP reaches 5700 euros
We are also far from the level of popularity reached by the LEP before the financial crisis of 2008. With the sharp rise in unemployment that followed, the number of its holders (13.2 million in 2008) fall to finish almost twice as low in 2021.
This return to grace of the LEP can also be measured in terms of the sums that savers, by definition modest, have sheltered there from inflation. Almost 10 billion euros more in one year, to 47.9 billion euros. On average, LEP holders therefore have 5,700 euros.
More than 3000 euros on three quarters of the LEPs
And, now, the balance of almost three out of four booklets (71%) exceeds 3000 euros. This represents close to two months’ salary or retirement pension. Since, for a single person, the income ceiling to open a LEP is 1780 euros per month. A level much higher than what we observe when we look in detail at the savings held on the Livret A savings accounts held by more than 55 million savers. The majority of them (51%) have less than 1,500 euros there.
Another figure that says a lot regarding the role of major financial reserve played by LEP. In one out of two cases, the French no longer have the right to invest more money there. They are indeed 47% to have passed the ceiling of 7700 euros. Hence the decision of the Ministry of the Economy to revise the amount. By this fall, it will increase to 10,000 euros.
Many of those who are now “blocked” by the ceiling should thus draw on their booklet A in order to transfer the maximum possible to their LEP. Enough to happily cross the cap of 50 billion euros placed by the French on this booklet without equivalent in Europe.
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