Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

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

Picture of women drinking and smoking in luxurious environment.
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.

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.

More
Bottles of champagne

More

Wealthy echelons thrive amid economic volatility

This content was published on The world’s richest people saw their wealth expand last year as stock markets and real estate gained in value, according to Swiss bank Credit Suisse.

Read more: Wealthy echelons thrive amid economic volatility

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

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 english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

Trump names Callista Gingrich ambassador to Switzerland

More

Trump picks Callista Gingrich as ambassador to Switzerland

This content was published on Incoming United States president Donald Trump has named Callista Gingrich as the next ambassador to Switzerland. Gingrich was posted to the Vatican under Trump's previous term.

Read more: Trump picks Callista Gingrich as ambassador to Switzerland

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR