A stronger USA dollar led to the number of super-rich with a net worth of more than US$50 million declining by 800 since mid-2014.
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At constant exchange rates, global wealth increased by $13 trillion in the year to mid-2015.
The report essentially centres around middle class growth, which it states grew at a slower pace this year than wealth at the top end. Millionaires will increase at least 70% in China, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Colombia and Poland, according to the report. The report said its 109 million middle class people now held US$7.3 trillion in financial assets and real estate – a jump of about 330 per cent since 2000. Philippines (407.7%), Columbia (383.8%), Russian Federation (374.2%), Australia (340.5%), Korea (254.3%) and Singapore (240.7%) are a few of the other countries that saw a healthy rate of growth in the total wealth of the middle class between the years 2000 – 2015.
Among regions, China is likely to see the largest percentage increase going ahead, the report says with the number of dollar millionaires increasing by 74%.
The median wealth per adult is US$3,379 (R45,300) and the GDP per adult is US$14,679 (R197,000). China, meanwhile has 108.8 million, followed by the USA, with 91.9 million, and Japan, with 62 million. Growth is expected to revert to 3.4 percent next year and in 2017, the survey showed.
The United Kingdom was one of only three countries, along with the U.S. and China, to record a rise in household wealth on 2014. It uses the USA as the benchmark country where a middle-class adult is defined as having wealth between $50,000 and $500,000 valued at mid-2015 prices, while using the global Monetary Fund series of purchasing power parity (PPP) values to derive equivalent middle-class wealth bounds in local purchasing power terms for other countries.
Credit Suisse Research Institute’s global wealth report yesterday said total household wealth on the mainland increased 7 per cent to US$22.8 trillion from mid-2014 to mid-2015, putting it second to the US. “Nevertheless, the number of millionaires has still grown significantly after discounting for these factors”, the report said.
Credit Suisse expects rising household wealth in the United States to benefit wealth management and consumer-oriented companies, including Charles Schwab Corp SCHW.N , Affiliated Managers Group Inc AMG.N , Visa Inc V.N , Marriott global Inc March O , Apple Inc AAPL.
Wealth is now expected to climb 6.6 percent a year to US$345 trillion through June 2020, the Zurich-based bank said.
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“Eyebrows were raised when earlier this year Oxfam predicted that the richest 1% would own more than the rest of us by 2016”.
