Allianz evaluation: Households as rich as ever – but wealth but unevenly distributed

After a leap of global financial assets at a record level, Allianz 2025 expects further growth. Gross 269 trillion euros called private households around the globe at the end of last year, as the insurance group calculated. At 8.7 percent, the plus was even larger last year than in the already strong previous year (plus 8.0 percent). However, not all investors benefit to the same extent – and the huge sum is unevenly distributed anyway.

According to Allianz, the global gross money has doubled in the past ten years. In relation to debts, net money of 210 trillion euros arose at the end of 2024 – growth of 10.3 percent compared to the previous year.

Further growth in the current year

“The global financial investments are expected to continue to grow in 2025, albeit significantly slower than in the two previous years,” predict the Allianz fathers in the 16th edition of the annual “Global Wealth Report” with a view to gross money. The potential for a setback on the stock markets is great, the uncertainty about US trade policy also “shadows on investment and savings decisions”: “Taking these factors into account, we expect growth of global financial systems by around 6 percent” for 2025.

The asset study contains information on financial assets and debt private households in 57 countries. According to the information, these countries are for 91 percent of global economic output and 72 percent of the world’s population. In the evaluation, the insurer takes cash, bank deposits, securities as well as claims against insurance and pension funds, but not real estate.

Half of the growth of global financial assets in 2024 was in North America and mainly to the United States. “With regard to the financial assets, the United States continues to state the tone,” the authors of the Allianz analysis stated. In the United States, 47 percent of the growth of global financial assets has been generated in the United States, China contributed 20 percent, Western Europe 12 percent.

Clever vs. hardworking saver

While many people in Germany save like the world champions, many Americans have their fortune work for themselves: Germany has achieved 5.9 percent growth of financial assets per year in the past ten years, comparable to the United States (6.2 percent). However, this was achieved by almost twice as high savings. At the same time, the contribution of value increases in this country was 32 percent – compared to 67 percent in the United States. “That is the difference between clever and hardworking savers,” concludes Kathrin Stoffel, co-author of the alliance assets study.

According to the latest Bundesbank figures for the first quarter of 2025, private households in Germany have a record money of more than 9 trillion euros gross. More than a third (37 percent) of this is cash or is located on giro and call money accounts. The sobering conclusion of Allianz boss Oliver Bäte recently at a Bundesbank conference: “In addition to the Frenchmen, the Germans are world champions in money gambles.”

Shares pay off in the long term

Both 2023 (plus 11.5 percent) and 2024 (plus 12.0 percent) placed securities almost twice as quickly as the other two investment classes viewed by Allianz. In investors in North America, securities make up 59.2 percent of portfolios, in Western Europe it is 34.9 percent. Anyone who relies on securities in Germany benefited in 2024: the value growth for securities was the main driver for the growth of local gross money by 7.4 percent.

Especially thanks to increasing courses in many stock markets, the club of the dollar-millionaires has grown worldwide, as the consulting company Capgemini recently analyzed: estimated 23.4 million people and thus 2.6 percent more than 2023 last year had an assets of at least one million dollars. Most of the most dollar millionaires counts Capgemini in the United States with almost eight million.

Wealth distributed unevenly

There is still no question of an uniform distribution of huge fortune: “Although inequality has been an important political topic for years, there was no progress in the direction of greater equality”, the “Allianz Global Wealth Report 2025” states: The richest 10 percent – around 570 million people in the 57 -considered countries – have a good 85 percent of the total net wealth.

With a net money per capita of 86,800 euros, Germany was in 13th place in the 57 countries at the end of 2024. The United States as the leader came to a net money of 311,000 euros in front of Switzerland (268,860 euros) and Singapore (197,460 euros). The bottom of the ranking is Pakistan with a per capita assets of 630 euros.