The crisis is good for the scroungers of the world who last year, despite Covid, grew by 6.3%, exceeding the threshold of 20 million people. Even better went to their assets increased by 7.6% to 80 trillion dollars. On the other hand, these are people who have at least a million dollars to invest and who last year took advantage of the trend of the stock markets and the stimuli introduced by governments. In Italy, there are more than 300,000 HNWIs, up by 9.2% compared to 2019, with assets that reached 593 billion (+ 2.3%).
In particular, North America has overtaken the Asia-Pacific area, becoming the leading region in 2020 in terms of both number and wealth of HNWIs. This is what emerges from Capgemini’s World Wealth Report (Wwr), now in its 25th edition, which analyzes the evolution of global wealth in the last year, as well as trends and evolution of HNWIs over the last quarter of a century.
In 2020, the report continues, the ultra-HNWI segment drove the overall growth of the population and wealth of HNWIs, which increased respectively by 9.6% and 9.1%, while the ‘next door’ and ‘mid -tier ‘recorded lower numbers, with population growth of around 6% and wealth of around 8%. According to the report, the longest-running in the industry and one of the most authoritative in the field of wealth management, over the past 25 years HNWIs have become more attentive to their investments and are now seeking better and broader advisory services. With players in the tech sector continuing to enter the world of wealth management, wealth managers must increasingly focus on technology and hyper-personalized business models. While the Covid-19 pandemic caused the third world economic shock of the twenty-first century, what has been learned from the technology bubble of 2002 and the global financial crisis of 2008 highlights the tendency of HNWIs to independently manage their investments in a market. bullish, to then request advisory services again during the phases of crisis and market volatility. With the current surge in the stock market, HNWIs are also looking to diversify their portfolio with alternative investments.
Sustainable investment is maturing, with 43% of ultra-Hnwis and 39% of the youngest (age = 40) Hnwis requesting an ESG score for the products offered by their consulting firm. 72% of HNWIs surveyed said they had invested in cryptocurrencies and 74% in other digital assets such as web domains or apps. Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are becoming more popular, while non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are slowly gaining credibility. The rise in commission-free retail investing has also piqued interest from HNWIs, with 39% saying they want commission-free trading, but their wealth management firm has yet to offer it.