Savings: what is this new European booklet with 8% return ?

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A European savings booklet offering a staggering return of 7.85%, guaranteed by the European Union, with the possibility of investing up to 50,000 euros. That's enough to make savers dream while the Livret A is capped at 3%. Too good to be true ? Unfortunately yes. This offer is actually a well-oiled scam that has already reached more than a million users in France and Belgium.

The mechanism is as simple as it is effective: Facebook ads promise a secure investment with an extraordinary return, well above current market rates. To put things in perspective, even the Livret d'épargne populaire (LEP), the all-category champion of regulated booklets, only offers 4%, and this rate is even expected to drop to 3% by February 2025.

The scammers have therefore chosen their timing well. While inflation is eating away at the purchasing power of the French and regulated savings rates are about to fall, this promise of huge returns is finding particular resonance. The fraudulent site livreteurope.fr goes so far as to copy and paste the legal notices of legitimate financial sites to give itself an appearance of credibility.

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A real European savings project in preparation

However, behind this scam lies a reality: the European Union is indeed working on a joint savings booklet project. Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz have also given their blessing to this initiative in May 2024, with a launch planned for 2025.

A first attempt already exists: the PEPP (Pan-European Personnel Pensions Product), a sort of PER on a European scale. But with only 5,000 clients, half of them in Poland, and a presence limited to four countries (excluding France), it is difficult to speak of success. Why such distrust?? Because the differences in taxation between member countries constitute a real headache that hinders the development of such a savings account.

For the time being, the Livret A and the LEP (for those who are eligible) remain the most profitable savings methods among risk-free products. For savers wishing to access higher returns, PEAs (shares) and ETFs remain benchmarks. But the level of risk is higher. Finally, the most playful can also turn to cryptocurrencies with a very high level of risk, these currencies being highly volatile.

• The promise of a European savings account at 7.85%, particularly targeting 40-65 year olds, is spreading on Facebook
• It is in fact a scam even if a real European savings project is under consideration
• The Livret A and the LEP remain the safest means of saving but their yields will fall in 2025 (2.5% for the livret A and 3% for the LEP)

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