Is Christine Lagarde totally neutral in the management of Livret A?
(BRUSSELS2) ... Not sure at all. One can, indeed, doubt the total impartiality of Christine Lagarde in the management of the opening of the booklet A to the banks when one sees his career. The current French Minister of Economy and Finance knows the protagonists of the affair very well. At least one of them... Since she made a short stint at ING, the Dutch bank, also established in France in the form of an online bank. On April 27, 2005, she thus entered her ING Supervisory Board which she left, a few months later, in June, when she was appointed to the government of Villepin, as Minister of Commerce. Certainly his official resume succinct does not brag about it (the more detailed one on the Ministry of Economy neither). But it's not very hard to find. A few months later, in March 2006, ING joined the quartet of French banks (BNP, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and Banque Populaire) who railed – some for years – against the granting of a monopoly on savings accounts A at the Post Office and at the Savings Banks. A decisive contribution without a doubt. Since the Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, also Dutch, had as her main task as a minister of the Dutch government, the privatization of the Dutch Post today partially controlled by... ING. But this is another story !
Why removing the Livret A monopoly is dangerous
From a strict point of view of the theory of competition, how not to be seduced: the Post Office (Postal Bank) and the Caisses d'Epargne have a contradictory monopoly with Community rules. At least apparently. But this monopoly has two main justifications (which were very little examined by the Commission in its decision):
1° It makes it possible to collect money for social housing.
2° (and above all I would say) it is used by a number of French people (among the less wealthy — Rmists, retirees, poor employees, bank bans… (a few million people) — to collect their allowances or salaries and pay their daily expenses. sums deposited are often modest and the sums withdrawn even more (sometimes 10 or 20 euros) Anyone who has ever been to a post office in France, in a city or an ordinary suburb, or in the countryside can testify... is therefore a real public service offered by the Post Office and the savings banks, which is not profitable on a
strict banking point of view, especially since these establishments are everywhere in France, even in the smallest villages. The presence of more abundantly filled A savings accounts (often managed by financial advisers from the Post Office or via the internet) makes it possible to balance this service. It's a safe bet that ING, Société Générale or BNP, which generally hunt for small, unprofitable accounts, will not welcome the first type of client and will reserve the second. In this case, the internal balance of the Post Office and the savings banks will be in question. And those who will suffer will be the “ordinary” citizens.
Little reminder of dates
Le 15th January 2002, the Commission had already deemed incompatible with the rules of the Treaty the fact that Crédit Mutuel benefited from overcompensation for the costs incurred for the distribution of the livret bleu. This decision was overturned by the Court of First Instance on 18th January 2005 for lack of motivation. Following the decision of December 21, 2005 approving the creation of the Banque Postale – which left aside the question of the livret A – and after a complaint from five banks, the Commission opened a formal investigation, the 7th June 2006. Decision is made on 10th May 2007 : the European Commission asks France, within nine months, to modify its legislation, relying on Article 86§3 of the Treaty.