Australians third richest people in the world

Australian adults have the third highest average level of wealth per person in the world after Switzerland and Norway, according to Credit Suisse research.

Property ownership, strong currency and an abundance of natural resources have seen the average Australian’s wealth double over the last decade to US$321,000, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s Global Wealth Report.

Global wealth has increased 72 per cent since 2000 to US$195 trillion, and is expected to reach US$315 trillion by 2015, the report stated.

“Asia Pacific countries, which now make up the bulk of the world’s middle class of emerging consumers, are driving the growth of the world’s wealth,” said Credit Suisse Asia Pacific chief executive Osama Abbasi.

China is the third largest wealth market in the world and economic expansion in other key Asia Pacific markets means growth in household wealth in those markets is up to 10 times the global rate.

One billion people in the middle segment of the wealth pyramid with between US$10,000 and US$100,000 own one-sixth of global wealth, or US$32 trillion.

People in this segment are the world’s emerging consumers and are expected to replace indebted US households as the global growth locomotive, according to Credit Suisse’s head of research for private banking, Giles Keating.

Half of the world’s 1,000 billionaires are in the US, 245 are in Asia-Pacific and 230 are in Europe. There are three billion people with less than US$10,000, of whom nearly one-third are in India.

Growth in the wealth of this group will require the development of new financial services. E-payment systems and microfinance have enabled the creation of new wealth in countries such as Mexico, Indonesia and Bangladesh, according to the report.