Is the trend reversing? After several months of stagnation below 1%, inflation started to rise slightly again in September, according to final data published this Wednesday October 15 by INSEE. Consumer prices excluding tobacco increased by 1.1% last month. This is the first time that the price increase has crossed the 1% threshold since last January (+1.4%). If it is still too early to talk about a lasting recovery in inflation, could this increase weigh on the calculation of the rate of the Popular Savings Account (LEP) at the start of next year?
For the record, the LEP rate is strictly indexed to the average inflation excluding tobacco over the last six months preceding its revision. For the next deadline, scheduled for February 1, 2026, the six months concerned will therefore extend from July to December 2025. However, the final inflation for three of these months is now known: +0.9% in July, +0.8% in August, and therefore +1.2% in September.
The theoretical LEP rate would fall to 1%
The provisional average over these first three months therefore amounts to 0.97%. If this dynamic continued until the end of the year, the theoretical rate of the LEP could thus land… at 1% on February 1st. A real blow, when we know that he has been paid 2.7% since August 1, which was already a drop compared to his rate at the start of the year (3.5%). However, there is a strong chance, as with its latest revision, that the final LEP rate will not depend on the average inflation, but on the Livret A rate.
Indeed, under the decree of January 27, 2021, the LEP rate must always be higher than that of the Livret A, increased by 0.5% point. A few weeks before its rate change on August 1, inflation also gave a LEP rate below 1%. But the passage of the Livret A to 1.7% prevented it from falling below 2.2%. In addition, this remuneration also benefited from a new boost of 0.5% proposed by the governor of the Bank of France, François Villeroy de Galhau, and approved by the Minister of the Economy Eric Lombard, which ultimately maintained it at 2.7%. However, for the moment, the Livret A rate is expected at 1.5% for February 1, which would give a floor rate of 2% for the LEP.
