Strong economic and equity market performance helped create nearly a million (920,000) new millionaires globally in 2014, as High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) grew in both number and wealth to 14.6 million and US $56.4 trillion, respectively. This reflects an increase of about seven percent, roughly half the growth rate of the previous year, according to the World Wealth Report 2015 (WWR) released by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. The report found that while the vast majority of the HNWI population and wealth is relatively evenly distributed between North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, the Asia-Pacific region grew at the fastest rate and is now home to more HNWIs than any other region.
While North America continues to rank first overall for HNWI wealth at US$16.2 trillion vs. Asia-Pacific’s US$15.8 trillion and Europe’s US$13.0 trillion, Asia-Pacific’s wealth growth (11 percent vs. North America’s nine percent and Europe’s 4.6 per cent) is expected to continue. In fact, Asia-Pacific is expected to take top spot for HNWI wealth before the end of 2015.
