Australia maintains its position at the top of the table for global median wealth and second for average wealth only behind Switzerland, according to a report unveiled yesterday by Credit Suisse.
The Credit Suisse Global Wealth report 2012, which measured the wealth of 4.6 billion adults globally, shows that Australia’s median, the midpoint of the range of richest adult to poorest, was US$194,000.
Exchange rate changes have reduced Australia’s average wealth by 11 per cent to US$354,986 during the year but despite the decline it sits second only behind Switzerland with US$468,186.
Compared to the rest of the world, very few Australians have a net worth less than US$100,000, reflecting factors such as relatively low levels of credit card and student loan debt.
The report found that over the past year, millionaires in Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden has diminished as a proportion of the global total, but has risen in the US and Japan.
But going forward, financial advisers have little to worry about because Credit Suisse forecasts millionaires in Australia to increase by 82 per cent to 1.6 million by 2017.
The report also found that the Asia Pacific has overtaken Europe as the world’s largest wealth-holding region by mid-2012, after Europe lost US$10.9 trillion in the value of household assets over the past year due to the sovereign debt crisis.
“Switzerland, Australia and Norway are the countries that stand out at the top and are likely to be at the top in 5 years time as well,” Credit Suisse Private Bank in Australia head of research David McDonald told InvestorDaily.
“We’re at a pretty strong starting point, so although we’ve got a really strong growth in a lot of the Asian countries in median wealth, they’re not going to catch up in five years,” he said.
Credit Suisse head of private banking in Asia Pacific Francesco de Ferrai said that unprecedented economic change and a radical reconfiguration of the world’s economic order is taking place.
“Asia Pacific, which makes up two-thirds of the world’s middle class of emerging consumers, remains the key growth engine of the world economy and global wealth,” he said.
