Allianz Global Wealth Report 2025 – Powering ahead; new episode of our Tomorrow podcast

The attentive media observer cannot help noticing that power has been shifting – whether that’s from south to north, old to young, or legacy to emerging, the common thread for the winners is agility.

Distribution also takes center in this week’s publication, our 2025 edition of the Wealth Report, in which we put again the asset and debt situation of households in almost 60 countries under the microscope. While 2024 was another record-breaking year, not all regions benefited equally. You can dive directly into the comprehensive report or get a flavor of the key trends being covered in the new episode of our Tomorrow podcast, resuming a favorite now that the summer is behind us (not only in terms of temperatures).

Allianz Global Wealth Report 2025

The comprehensive report for you here:

Powering ahead

2024 saw another year of solid growth for the global economy – and another bumper year for financial assets of private households, which rose by +8.7%, surpassing the strong growth of the previous year (+8.0%). By the end of 2024, total financial assets had reached a new absolute record of EUR269trn, though at 283% relative to economic activity, this is only at the same level as in 2017 as inflation has “artificially” inflated the denominator.

The US remains on top

As might be expected, this enormous wealth is not distributed evenly across the world. In fact, around half of all private financial assets are concentrated in just one region: North America. Remarkably, America‘s share has hardly changed in the last 20 years, despite the rapid rise of China, whose share is now around 15% – a fivefold increase compared to 2004. China‘s rise has come at the expense of other developed regions: Western Europe and Japan have lost significant market share over the last two decades, with Europe down 9.1pps and Japan down 5.9pps; Japan‘s share has thus more than halved.

Growth made in the USA

Over the past 20 years, the financial assets of American households have grown in line with the global average. But in 2024, their growth was significantly higher. This is in stark contrast to Western Europe and Japan, where growth lagged the global average by over 2pps and just under 4pps per year, respectively. Combined with the sheer size of American financial assets, this means that in 2024 more than half (53.6%) of the growth in global financial assets was generated in North America. Over the last two decades, this figure stood at 48.5%. China, on the other hand, accounted for 19.8%, while Western Europe accounted for 14.1%. When it comes to financial wealth, the US continues to call the shots.

Smart savers

Owning securities, particularly stocks, is key for asset growth. In this respect, the last two years have been extremely gratifying for savers. In both 2023 (+11.5%) and 2024 (+12.0%), securities grew almost twice as fast as the other two asset classes: insurance/pensions (+6.7% and +6.9%, respectively) and bank deposits (+4.7% and +5.7%, respectively). However, the extent to which savers benefit from rising securities prices varies widely between countries and regions due to differences in portfolio structures. Notably, it is primarily North American savers who invest in securities, accounting for 59.2% of portfolios. In Western Europe, for example, this figure stands at just 34.9%.

Hard savers

American savers also demonstrate a clear preference for securities when investing new savings. In 2024, for instance, they accounted for 67% of fresh savings, compared to just 26% in Western Europe. This consistent focus on investment vehicles with high potential for value appreciation has paid off. While financial assets in North America grew by an average of +6.2% per year over the last ten years, Western Europe achieved an average growth rate of just 3.8%. However, savings efforts are higher in Europe: on average over the last decade, savers here mobilized an additional 2.3% of their financial assets in fresh savings, compared to 2.0% in the US. A comparison with Germany is instructive: Germany has also achieved relatively high financial asset growth (+5.9% per year) over the last ten years, but in a different way: fresh savings amounted to 3.7% of existing financial assets per year – almost twice the figure for the US. At the same time, the contribution of value increases was only 32% – less than half that of the US.

No more debt, please

Although central banks started to lower their key interest rates again in 2024, this did not result in an increase in demand for loans. In fact, global private debt growth slowed further, from +3.8% in 2023 to +3.1%. Overall, global household debt totalled EUR59.6trn at the end of 2024. Nearly all regions recorded anaemic debt growth in 2024, with China being a case in point: While private liabilities had grown at an average rate of almost +20% per year over the previous two decades, growth in 2024 was just +3.4%.

Surging net financial assets

Relatively strong growth in assets and relatively weak growth in debt led to a significant increase in net financial assets (financial assets minus liabilities) in 2024. At +10.3%, this exceeded the strong growth of the previous year (+9.4%) by a considerable margin. Overall, global net financial assets totalled EUR210trn by the end of 2024. This represents a doubling of assets over the past decade. Growth last year was well above the long-term trend in almost all regions.

Emerging debt

The global debt ratio (liabilities as a percentage of GDP) was 62.6%, which is almost 8pps lower than two decades ago. However, this does not apply to all regions. Deleveraging was primarily pursued by households in North America (-15.9pps), Japan (-6.1pps) and Western Europe (-2.5pps). By contrast, most emerging markets have experienced a significant increase in their debt ratios over the past two decades. China leads the way, with its ratio rising by 43.4pps to reach 61.4%. A clear pattern is emerging: In emerging economies, net financial assets have grown significantly more slowly than gross financial assets, implying that debt in these countries has grown faster than assets on average. In advanced economies, however, the opposite is true: debt is growing more slowly than financial assets.

Another weak year for real estate

In 2024, the value of real estate assets grew at more than twice the speed than in the previous year: +3.6%, compared to +1.7% in 2023. However, even this figure is rather weak in historical terms; growth was weaker only in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2012. However, price trends varied from market to market. While there were solid increases in North America, prices in Western Europe hardly moved; in some markets, such as France and Germany, prices have fallen across the board. Overall, the value of real estate assets in the countries we analyse amounted to EUR158trn.

Poor countries are no longer catching up

For a long time, international wealth development was characterized by convergence, with the gap between poorer and richer countries narrowing. This is no longer the case, as seen in the ratio of net financial assets between advanced and emerging markets. Between 2004 and 2014, this figure fell sharply from 67 to 24. This means that, on average, the net financial assets of richer countries were “only” 24 times higher than those of poorer countries in 2014. However, in the following decade, the decline was only 6 points, reaching a current value of 18. Most of this decline occurred in the first two years, with the ratio falling to 20 by 2016. Since 2017 convergence between richer and poorer countries has more or less come to a standstill.

No progress in 20 years

Overall, the distribution of wealth appears less unequal in the national context compared to the global context. The share of the richest 10% is 60.4% (unweighted average), rather than 85.1% (global level). The gap between median and average wealth is also significantly smaller, with per capita wealth being not 15 times but only around three times higher than median wealth (ratio 3.08). However, the national situation is even more worrying in one respect. Despite inequality being a major political issue for years, there has been no progress towards greater equality. In 2004, the richest 10% in the countries we analyse had a 59.9% share of wealth, and the average wealth was three times the median wealth (ratio 3.05). These figures are almost exactly the same as last year‘s.

China‘s „wild“ years are over

Looking at individual countries, however, changes can already be seen, albeit in only a few. In fact, 37 countries (out of 57) have a relatively stable distribution of wealth; the concentration of wealth has changed by less than 2pps. Only in seven countries has the distribution improved, i.e. wealth concentration, measured as the share of the top 10%, has declined. On the other hand, in 13 countries wealth concentration has increased significantly. China stands out in particular as nowhere else has the wealth share of the richest 10% risen more sharply (+17.3pps). This is due to the enormous economic and social changes of the last 20 years, which have not only contributed to a huge increase in general wealth, but also to the emergence of a genuine upper class. At 67.9%, the share of the richest 10% in total wealth is now well above the global average. However, it seems that China‘s „wild“ years are over as the concentration of wealth has remained unchanged over the last five years.

The comprehensive report for you here, in a special HTML-version to enhance user-friendliness.

Out now: New episode of our Tomorrow podcast

You like to listen to podcasts on economics? If you want to listen to our wealth report in a podcast, Aria, our AI-economist will guide you through the main conclusions of the Allianz Global Wealth Report 2025. Find out why 2024 was another record-breaking year and how different regions have fared.