(10 October 2017) – Allianz has unveiled the eighth edition of its “Global Wealth Report”, which puts the asset and debt situation of households in more than 50 countries under the microscope.
2016 was politically a very turbulent year, but private wealth shrugged it off. Worldwide, financial assets climbed to a record high of almost 170 trillion euros.
Last year’s acceleration in growth came mostly from industrialized countries, where asset growth doubled to 5.2%. However, Asia (excluding Japan) was once again the uncontested leader in 2016, with growth of 15%. In a long-term comparison, too, Asia (excluding Japan) is the dominant region, particularly when inflation is also taken into account.
Global household liabilities increased by 5.5 percent in 2016, the highest rate of growth since 2007. That means that debt also rose faster than nominal economic output for the first time since 2009, and the global debt ratio increased by almost 1 percentage point to 64.6 percent. The picture varied widely between individual regions.
At the top of the list of the 20 richest countries (net financial assets per capita, see table), a changing of the guard occurred in 2016, with the United States capturing the top spot from Switzerland. Otherwise, the list gives the now usual picture, with Scandinavian and Asian countries dominating. There is in fact only one country from the Eurozone still included in the Top 10: the Netherlands.