The European Central Bank published euro area sector accounts for the fourth quarter of 2024, showing household financial investment growing at a broadly unchanged annual rate of 2.4% while non-financial corporations’ financing growth slowed to 0.9% from 1.1% in the previous quarter. Household gross disposable income rose 4.4% and the gross saving rate increased to 15.4%, while non-financial corporations recorded an unchanged decline in gross operating surplus of -1.4%. Household gross non-financial investment fell at a more negative annual rate of -1.5% (mainly housing), while loans to households grew 1.2%. Within household financial investment, currency and deposits rose 2.8%, investment in debt securities grew 9.0% (down from 15.9%), and shares and other equity increased 2.0% driven by faster growth in investment fund shares (7.7%); household net worth grew 4.4% and the debt-to-income ratio decreased to 81.9% from 85.0% a year earlier. For non-financial corporations, gross non-financial investment rose 1.0% (down from 2.8%) and financial investment grew 1.8%; financing growth was lower across loans (1.2%) and equity (0.4%), while debt securities financing was broadly unchanged at 2.4% and trade credit financing accelerated to 3.5%. Corporate debt ratios declined, with the consolidated debt-to-GDP ratio at 67.3% (from 68.8% a year earlier) and the wider non-consolidated measure at 138.7% (from 140.7%). The release incorporates data revisions back to the first quarter of 2021, and the ECB indicated that results for its experimental Distributional Wealth Accounts for 2024 Q4 are planned for 30 May 2025 on a tentative basis.

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