Livret A: worst April since 2009, with more withdrawals than deposits

The Livret A savings account, still penalized by the drop in its interest rate in February , was shunned by savers and recorded its worst April since 2009, according to data published by the Caisse des Dépôts (CDC) this Thursday, May 22. The French preferred to dip into their Livret A rather than top it up, and the total amount of withdrawals from the most widespread savings product exceeded that of deposits by 200 million euros in April.

This "net outflow" is unprecedented in its amount since 2009 - the year the Livret A savings account was made available to all banks - and only April 2015 had already seen the Livret A account end in the red, at -100 million euros.

Conversely, Sustainable Development and Solidarity Savings Accounts (LDDS) grew slightly last month, with net inflows of €310 million. Livret A savings accounts and LDDS savings accounts, two related products with only a different ceiling, allow savings to be kept available, but they are suffering from the reduction in their interest rate from 3% to 2.4%, announced in mid-January and effective February 1. They are particularly affected by competition from life insurance, which had garnered record premiums in March.

An illustration of the French disaffection for these two savings products: over the first four months of the year, the cumulative amounts collected by banks for these two savings accounts amounted to 3.6 billion euros, compared to 11.3 billion euros over the period January-April 2024.

Despite this slowdown in collection, the outstanding amounts for these two booklets are still hovering around their historical highs: 444 billion euros for the Livret A, 162.7 billion euros for the LDDS, or 606.7 billion euros in total, a record.

In addition, the Livret d'épargne populaire (LEP) , reserved for low-income households, also experienced its worst April since 2009, with a significant outflow of €1.96 billion. April is often a poor month for this booklet, due to the annual account closures by banks for holders who no longer meet the resource conditions, but the scale of the outflow suggests that here too, withdrawals were higher than deposits. By comparison, in April 2024, the outflow was only €270 million. The total outstanding amount of the LEP stood at €80.8 billion last month.