Overall, the report found that global wealth fell by almost 5 percent in the year to mid-2015 to $250 trillion due a strengthening of the United States dollar in which income is compared.
Credit Suisse is the fourth-largest wealth manager, behind Swiss competitor UBS Group AG, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp, London-based consultancy Scorpio Partnership said in a report in July.
But wider findings in the study, which covered the 12 months to 30 June, suggested the first annual decline in global wealth since the financial crisis in 2008.
At constant exchange rates, global wealth increased by $13 trillion in the year to mid-2015.
Measured in rupee terms, wealth has grown rapidly in India since 2000 except during the global financial crisis, says Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2015. It turns out that the bulk of the world’s wealth is in the hands of just 0.7 percent of the population.
“Going forward, we expect the global economy to accelerate slightly, with the Chinese economy stabilising as it makes a transition towards consumption and services”, said Michael O’Sullivan, at Credit Suisse.
It noted a drop of 40% in the country’s net worth alongside a 35% fall in the value of the Russian stock market. “This is reflected in the fact that 95 per cent of the adult population has wealth below $10,000”.
At the top of the pyramid, the number of dollar millionaires in India is expected to rise by 65% over the next five years, in line with a similar increase projected across the Asia-Pacific region, according to the report.
“This explains to a few extent the relative changes in wealth over the previous year”.
Switzerland kept its top spot, with average wealth of US$567,100 per person.
Over the next five years, it is increasingly likely the world’s millionaires list will be topped by Asia-Pacific nations, as the number of millionaires in this region is forecast to grow by 66 per cent. In Hong Kong, total household wealth grew 8.3 per cent to US$1 trillion over the past year.
However if currency effects are stripped out, wealth continued to expand at the trend rate since the beginning of the century. Credit Suisse puts its mean wealth per adult at US$21,402, the worst level since 2008, with the middle class lower-bound wealth at US$22,696. It did however rank 12th for so-called ultra-high net worth individuals, coming in ahead of Russian Federation, Brazil or Spain in the number of people (2021) boasting a fortune larger than $US50 million.
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