Allianz Global Wealth Report 2026: Markets Drive Record Wealth as AI Raises the Stakes

The 17th edition of the Allianz “Global Wealth Report,” which puts the asset and debt situation of households in almost 60 countries under the microscope, shows that global household wealth hit a new record in 2025, while market gains and the rise of AI are making asset ownership increasingly important in determining who benefits from future wealth creation.

Global financial assets increased by 8.6% in 2025 to a record EUR268.4trn, despite a challenging geopolitical and economic backdrop. Markets did the heavy lifting in 2025, as rising asset prices accounted for roughly 4 out of every 5 euros of new household wealth. Fresh savings fell 5.4% to EUR4.1trn. “Global wealth set another record in 2025, but that only tells half of the story,” said Ludovic Subran, Chief Economist and Chief Investment Officer at Allianz. “Since 2019, nominal financial assets are up 50%, but in real terms, stripped of inflation, they only grew 23%. The situation is worse in Western Europe where financial assets in real terms are up 0.5% compared to 2019. It is 21% in North America and 70% in China.”

Portfolio composition increasingly determines who captures the gains from wealth creation. Securities increased by 12.4% in 2025, more than twice as fast as deposits (5.7%) or insurance and pensions (5.0%), pushing their share of global financial assets to a record 46.9%. North American households, with 60.7% of their portfolios invested in securities, benefited particularly strongly from rising markets; their region generated 51.4% of the global increase in financial assets. Over the past decade, valuation gains accounted for 71% of North American financial-asset growth, compared with only 36% in Western Europe, reflecting the importance of investing savings over holding them in low-earning accounts.

We estimate that global financial assets could grow by a solid 9% in 2026, but the medium-term backdrop is turning tougher as slower growth, persistent inflation, fragmentation and high public debt weigh on returns. Going forward, AI is therefore the key swing factor: stronger productivity and earnings could sustain asset returns, but the growing reliance on AI-powered markets to drive household wealth also creates vulnerability. With the S&P 500 up around 95% since end-2022, much of the recent wealth boost rests on elevated market valuations and AI expectations. We find that a 25% correction in the S&P 500 would erase around USD27trn of US household wealth in the year of the shock, equivalent to almost 14% of total net worth, weighing on confidence and consumption, and pushing the US economy into recession.

But the AI wealth story is not only about how much wealth is created, it is also about who captures the gains. “AI could become the next great wealth engine, but the key question is who gets a stake in it,” said Katharina Utermoehl, Head of Thematic & Policy Research at Allianz Research. “As AI potentially shifts more value creation towards capital, broader participation in capital returns and policies that help workers adjust will be key to making the AI wealth dividend more widely shared.”

Gross financial assets of Asia’s private households increased by 9.9%, up from 9.0% in the previous year, or EUR6.4trn, reaching EUR70.6trn at the end of 2025.

This increase meant Asia contributed 30% to global gross financial asset growth in absolute terms, driven in particular by developments in China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-richest countries in terms of total gross financial assets. Private households in these two countries held 75% of total gross financial assets in Asia and together accounted for 23% of total global absolute asset growth.

Growth was mainly driven by securities, which increased by 16.2%, followed by deposits (7.5%) and life insurance and pensions (6.0%). Even so, deposits remained the dominant asset class in Asia’s private households’ portfolios, with a share of 50%, while securities account for around a third and insurance and pensions for 17%. These figures reflect the differing development stages of the financial systems in the surveyed countries, with the asset-to-GDP ratio ranging from 38.9% in Pakistan to 580.6% in Taiwan.

Inflation also eroded the wealth of Asian private households: in real terms, gross financial assets increased by only 8.7%. However, this still was markedly above the global average of 6.2%.

Liabilities growth slowed to 2.7%, down from 4.4% in 2024, leading to consolidation in many countries. The region’s average debt-to-GDP-ratio declined to 58.8%, below the global average of 60.9%. However, in Malaysia and Thailand, debt-to-GDP-ratios remained above 80% and in South Korea and Taiwan above 90%, placing Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan among the ten countries with the highest private household debt-to GDP ratios covered in our report. But, while Taiwanese private households’ gross financial assets are more than five times their liabilities, the asset-to-liability ratio is markedly lower in the other countries.

Since liabilities grew more slowly than gross financial assets, total net financial assets of Asia’s private households increased by 12.6%, corresponding to EUR13,220 per capita at the end of 2025. If Asia were a country, it would rank 37th in terms of net financial assets per capita. This average, however, masks significant regional differences, with Singapore and Taiwan ranking 4th and 5th among the world’s wealthiest countries, while Indonesia and Pakistan were still among the countries with the lowest net financial assets per capita in international comparison.