François Villeroy de Galhau: The Savings and Investments Union - (finally) turning an idea into actions
Speech of Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the conference "Where do savings go?", jointly organised by the Association Européenne de l'Économie Financière et des Régulations (AEFR) and the Réunions d'Économie Financière (REF), Paris, 11 September 2025.
The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.
Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to speak before you to mark the publication of the 158th edition of the Revue d'économie financière, which is devoted to an essential question: "Where Do Savings Go?" I would like to pay a friendly tribute to the remarkable work of the AEFR, its President Pervenche Bérès, and the two coordinators, Marie-Laure Barut-Etherington and Pierre Bollon. Today, I shall focus on one of the three main issues they raise: mobilising European savings to support the European economy. For that, I shall take another look at a project that is not new but has recently had something of a "makeover": the Savings and Investments Union (SIU). To keep it brief, clear and concrete, I shall start by recalling three stylised facts about European savings and investment (1), before going on to dispel three doubts (2) and then proposing five principal levers for finally turning an idea into actions (3).
First of all, the euro area has a significant and frequently overlooked asset: a higher household saving ratio than in the United States – 15.3% of gross disposable income compared with 10.8% across the Atlantic. The gap is less stark in financial savings – due to the size of real estate savings in Europe – but the main problem is how these financial savings are allocated: they are predominantly invested in low-risk assets and far less in shares or investment funds. Europe has a wealth of savings but it lacks equity capital, which is vital to enable firms to innovate due to the higher associated risk. Non-financial corporation (NFC) equity financing amounts to just 85% of GDP in the euro area, compared with 220% of GDP in the United States. Conversely, euro area NFCs have higher levels of debt.