record year 2024 for interest paid on Livret A and LDDS accounts

With a total outstanding amount higher than ever, combined with a high interest rate, the record of the previous year could only fall: the interest paid on the Livret A and the Livret de développement durable et solidaire (LDDS) during the The year 2024 reached 16.80 billion euros, announced Wednesday January 22, the Caisse des Dépôts (CDC). Added to these record interests are the deposits of French savers which exceeded withdrawals of 21.42 billion euros.

This brings the total outstanding amount of the two tax-free savings accounts also to its highest, to 603.1 billion euros as of December 31, 2024, an increase of 38.2 billion euros compared to the end of 2023, i.e. + 6, 8%.

To achieve the same level of performance next year, the increase in the total outstanding amount will need to compensate for the drop from 3% to 2.4% in the rate of the two savings accounts planned for 1^is February 2025.

Savings have been on the rise since the 2020 lockdown

After a gloomy autumn, December was much better for Livret A as for LDDS, with 3.93 billion euros collected, and allowed the net collection of these two livrets to cross the barrier of 20 billion euros over the year. For Livret A, it is even the largest collection for a month of December since 2009, the year of generalization of its distribution in all banks. It is the latter and the Caisse des Dépôts itself which remunerate the interest on the Livret A and the LDDS.

Regulated savings are still on the rise since the 2020 lockdown – when the French were forced to consume less – even if a form of normalization was observed in 2024 compared to 2023, the year when total outstandings increased. by more than 10%.

Combined with the decline in inflation throughout 2024, maintaining the rate at 3% has enabled the Livret A to return to a positive real return: when the rate of the latter is higher than inflation, savers mechanically earn money.

“One would have thought that the decline in inflation could have influenced households to spend more. But general uncertainty encourages savings”says Eric Dor, director of economic studies at the IESEG School of Management. The waltzes of government, the vagueness which surrounds the economic future, the geopolitical instability are all factors which encourage “precautionary savings”he explains.

The popular savings book reaches its peak

The drop in the Livret A rate, unprecedented in its magnitude since 2009, could make it subject to competition from life insurance contracts, in particular funds in euros, with guaranteed capital.

Livrets A and LDDS will “stay attractive”nevertheless judges Eric Dor, notably because “except for a huge surprise”the rate, even if falling, should “stay above the level of inflation”. But he is not “not excluded” that we see “certain active savers” shift their savings to life insurance.

The president of the Circle of Savings, Philippe Crevel, believes in a note that “the persistence of an uncertain political and economic context could lead households to maintain their payments at a high level on the Livret A or the LDDS”.

For its part, the Popular Savings Booklet (LEP), reserved for modest savers, experienced a less efficient year in 2024 than the previous year: its outstanding amount reached 82.2 billion euros, an increase of 14 .3%, far from the 50% jump it experienced in 2023.

“The saving capacity of this category of the population is not very high”note Eric Dor. “This still represents a resurgence, since since July we have observed a slow decline in collections on the LEP. But this remains much lower than December 2023”says Stéphane Magnan, financial director of the Caisse des Dépôts savings fund.

The LEP will also see its rate drop on February 1, 2025: it will go from 4% to 3.5%. A decline that the government wanted to be less drastic than what the theoretical calculations predicted (2.9%). The number of holders of this booklet, accessible under income conditions, tends to plateau: it stood at 11.8 million at the end of 2024, far from the 19 million households who could qualify for it. The Banque de France aims to open one million more this year.