BPCE L'Observatoire

Trends in savings and financial investments, September 2024

[November 2024] Every quarter, the economists in the Group’s Research & Prospective studies department publish a review of trends in the savings and financial investments made by companies and households in France. In the third quarter of 2024, this analysis reviews the performance of the principal financial investments along with the behavior and perceptions of households and businesses in a given macroeconomic environment.

The decline in arbitrage decisions continued in September

Aggregate new investment and savings inflows (excluding securities and cash) came to a total of +28.7 billion euros in the first nine months of 2024, close in volume to last year’s performance but substantially below the average for the 2019-2022 period (which stood at +92 billion euros). These more recent inflows, however, were marked by an almost 50% decline in arbitrage decisions compared with last year. Net outflows from sight deposits and euro-denominated life insurance products declined by 93% and 80% respectively.

Although net flows were lower, aggregate inflows from January to September continued to be bolstered by the dynamism of tax-exempt passbook savings accounts (+26.5 billion euros), unit-linked life insurance (+25.8 billion euros) and term accounts (+23.5 billion euros). At the same time, outflows chiefly came from home purchase savings products (-27 billion euros), non-tax-exempt passbook savings accounts (-12.4 billion euros) and derived, to a lesser extent, from euro-denominated life insurance (-4.5 billion euros) and sight deposits (-2 billion euros).

Non-financial companies: new decline in bank flows and reduction in arbitrage decisions

At -15.4 billion euros, year-on-year aggregate bank flows for non-financial companies (NFCs) remained negative in the third quarter of the year, despite a sharp reduction in average outflows over the first three quarters of 2023 vs. 2024. However, if securities are included (data on securities was unavailable in the third quarter of 2024), the cash position continued to grow thanks to a positive flow of +34.9 billion euros from debt securities and collective investment schemes, notably money market funds, in the third quarter of 2024.

As in the case of households, the decline in arbitrages carried out by non-financial companies on banking products gathered pace in the third quarter of 2024 with a year-on-year fall in flows on term deposits (down from +102.6 billion euros to +22.3 billion euros) and 72% for sight deposits (from -126.5 billion euros to -34.8 billion euros) compared with the third quarter of 2023.

The strong momentum of retirement savings plans continued in 2024

Boosted by an 11-billion-euro increase in outstandings, retirement savings plans (PERs) enjoyed considerable success in the first half of 2024. Held by 10.9 million savers (an additional 0.8 million since the start of the year), total outstandings in retirement savings plans currently stand at almost 114 billion euros. Excluding transfers, the individual savings plan alone gains approximately 600,000 net subscriptions and 7 billion euros in net contributions per year.

Although the number of policyholders is evenly divided between individual, mandatory and group retirement savings plans, individual retirement savings plans still account for the majority in terms of assets (57% of total assets in the second quarter of 2024). However, this relative preponderance is tending to decline with each successive quarter, notably through transfers to group retirement savings plans.