Allianz unveiled the 14th edition of its “Global Wealth Report”, which puts the asset and debt situation of households in almost 60 countries under the microscope.
The report has labelled 2022 as an annus horribilis for savers. Asset prices fell across the board in the “everything slump” scenario. The result was a dismal -2.7% decline in private households’ global financial assets the strongest drop since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008. Growth rates of the three major asset classes, however, differed markedly. While securities (-7.3%) and insurance/pensions (-4.6%) saw strong setbacks, bank deposits showed robust growth at +6.0%. Overall, financial assets worth EUR 6.6 trillion were lost, total financial assets amounted to EUR 233 trillion at the end of 2022; EUR 63.9trn or 27% are owned by Asian households.
The decline was most pronounced in North America (-6.2%), followed by Western Europe (-4.8%). Asia, on the other hand, still recorded relatively strong growth rates, the regional average stood at 4.6% in 2022, after 10.2% in 2021. Even Japan saw an increase, albeit a very small one (+0.2%). In contrast, emerging economies like Indonesia and the Philippines clocked double-digit growth. China’s financial assets grew robustly, too, by 6.9%. But compared to the previous year (+13.3%) and the long-term average of the last 20 years (+15.9%), this was a rather disappointing development – repeated lockdowns clearly took their toll.
The gross financial assets of Malaysian households increased by a mere 1.0% in 2022, after 2.4% in the previous year. The main cause was securities which lost -1.8% in value. But also, the development of the other two big assets classes was rather dismal:insurance/pension – with a portfolio share of 40% the dominant asset class in Malaysia – increased by 1.6% (2021: 4.7%) and bank deposits by 2.8% (5.6%).
Compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, financial assets are 10.7% higher – but only in nominal terms. Adjusted for inflation, the increase is reduced by half to 5.7% in three years. Growth in liabilities accelerated to 5.4%, after 4.2% in 2021. Nonetheless, thanks to buoyant nominal GDP growth, the debt-to-GDP ratio fell by 8pp to 81% – which is still 20pp above the regional average. Net financial assets, finally, declined by 2.8%. With net financial assets per capita of EUR 9,830, Malaysia climbed two rungs to 39 th position in the ranking of the richest countries (financial assets per capita, see table).
