French banks were behind almost half of the increase in lending to euro area non-financial corporations and households in 2017[Les banques françaises portent près de la moitié de la hausse des crédits aux sociétés non financières et aux ménages de la zone euro en 2017]

After accelerating sharply in 2014, growth in the euro area’s money supply (M3) has been stable since 2015 (4.6% in 2017), fuelled mainly by an increase in overnight deposits. Since end-2016, the French component has been growing faster than the euro area M3 aggregate. Its growth reached 8.3% in January 2018, outstripping the M3 aggregate by three points. Sustained by low interest rates and the programme of government securities purchases by the Eurosystem, credit to the private sector and credit to general government were the main sources of money creation in both France and the euro area. In the private sector, almost half of annual credit flows to non-financial corporations (NFCs) and households were provided by French monetary financial institutions (MFIs; in 2017, this amounted to EUR 139.4 billion out of a total of EUR 297.2 billion in the euro area).