The impact of Brexit on personal wealth has seen Britain lose more than 400,000 millionaires since the vote.
Household wealth has dropped by $1.5 trillion, which translates as a drop of $33,000 in personal net worth to an average $289,000 since the end of June 2016.
Michael O’Sullivan, Chief Investment Officer of International Wealth Management at Credit Suisse, said: “The impact of the Brexit vote is widely thought of in terms of GDP but the impact on household wealth bears watching.
“The UK suffered a significant drop in wealth in 2016 in response to the Brexit vote, which triggered a sharp decline in exchange rates and the stock market.”
The figures come from the latest edition of the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report.
Poor are getting poorer
The study reveals the creation of wealth stagnated in 2016, continuing a trend which started in 2013.
Total global wealth is estimated at $256 trillion- up 1.4% from 2015. The average person is now worth $52,800.
However, behind the global picture stand figures that while the rich are slowing down the rate they make money, the poor are still getting poorer.
Africa is the poorest region, with a total wealth of $2,503 billion – down 5% or $132 billion.
India is the second worse off with a total worth of $3,099 billion, a drop of 0.8% ($26 billion) and Latin America third with wealth of $7,561 billion down 4.1% ($322 billion).
In contrast, the Asia Pacific continues to see a shift of wealth from Europe.
Wealth gap for poorest billion people
Total wealth was up $4,117 billion (8.3%) to $53,465 billion while the total declined in Europe by $1,300 billion (-4.1%) to $73,305 billion.
While personal wealth stood still for many, since 2000, the number of millionaires has risen from 12.4 million to 32.4 million and is expected to reach 45.1 million by 2021.
The fewest millionaires live in Africa (136,000), India (178,000) and Latin America (502,000).
“An estimated 9% of adults globally are net debtors, which is a worrying statistic, given that interest rates are near multi-year lows,” says the report.
The bottom billion poorest people live in Africa, India and parts of the Asia Pacific – the report says little is known about their financial standing as reports tend to concentrate on the richest rather than poorest in society.
