Switzerland retains top spot in global wealth ranking as world gets richer

The average wealth of an adult in Switzerland amounted to $709,612. Keystone-SDA

Last year, the global population became wealthier overall. As a result, global wealth rebounded from the decline seen in 2022. Switzerland retained its top position in the UBS Global Wealth Report.

Switzerland once again took the top spot in the report published on Wednesday by the Swiss bank.

The world got progressively richer in 2023, across all wealth segments, UBS wrote in the annual study. UBS experts anticipate that the rise of individuals into higher wealth brackets will become even more pronounced globally in the long term.

News today from Switzerland: get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Overall, global wealth grew by 4.2% in US dollar terms in the favourable stock market year of 2023, amidst weakening inflation, following a decline of 3% in 2022. According to the study, the decline at that time was mainly attributed to currency effects and the strength of the dollar.

Regionally, wealth growth was led by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with an increase of 4.8%. Wealth also increased significantly in the Asia-Pacific region (+4.4%), while the Americas fell slightly behind with a growth rate of 3.6%.

Switzerland maintained its top position in the country rankings. The average wealth of an adult in Switzerland (excluding debts) amounted to $709,612 (CHF638,012). The second and third positions were held by Luxembourg ($607,524) and Hong Kong ($582,000), respectively.

According to the report, wealth measured in US dollars in Switzerland last year had recovered as well as it had worldwide. But appearances are deceptive, as the value measured in local currency has shrunk by almost 6%.

Translated from German by DeepL/sp

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].