We’ve had a chaotic few years and 2022 was no different. High inflation and rapid interest rate hikes have done a lot of damage. The Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse confirms this with a study. However, the damage is unlikely to last long as many new millionaires would be added in the coming years.
Prosperity in Europe and North America shrank
In its annual Global Wealth Report, Crédit Suisse writes that total adult wealth worldwide has fallen for the first time since 2008. A value of 11.3 trillion US dollars has been destroyed worldwide. As a result, total global wealth fell by 2.4%. Global wealth per adult also fell 3.6% to $84,718 to be precise.
This was mainly due to impairments of financial assets. Ironically, real estate hasn’t really contributed to this over the past year, despite the sharp rise in interest rates. Prosperity fell the most in North America and Europe. This is because $10.9 trillion of the total loss of $11.3 trillion came from here.
South America is now doing very well, with total assets growing by 2.4 trillion US dollars. Prosperity grew most strongly in Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia.
The number of millionaires is growing rapidly
But that won’t be long, says the Swiss investment bank. Global wealth is expected to grow by 38% over the next five years. The number of millionaires is even expected to increase by 17% to almost 1.4 million people by 2027. When you consider that the Netherlands has less than 18 million people, that’s quite a lot.
In addition, the Netherlands has achieved very good results over the past 22 years. From 2000 to 2022, the wealth of an average Dutchman grew from USD 44,513 to USD 120,270. Moreover, wealth inequality in the Netherlands actually decreased slightly at this point. Rich people have therefore become a little less rich. Credit Suisse doesn’t say how cryptocurrencies contributed.
Credit Suisse ran into financial difficulties late last year. In the course of the major banking crisis at the beginning of this year, it was then taken over by its Swiss neighbor UBS. Since then, the bank has been allowed to continue its activities under the umbrella of UBS.