- Markets on Autopilot: Global financial assets rose 8.6% to a record EUR268.4trn, with markets generating 4 in 5 euros of additional wealth.
- Portfolios set the tone: Securities grew 12.4%, more than twice as fast as deposits or insurance and pensions.
- AI raises the stakes: AI could power the next wave of wealth creation, but high valuations and concentrated ownership raise both market and distributional risks.
- Malaysia’s financial assets developed less dynamically than in the previous year: Gross financial assets rose by 6.2% in 2025, after 8.7% in 2024.
- 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.
- Markets, not savings, powering the gain
- 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.”
- Portfolios set the tone
- 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.
- 2026-27: AI as a swing factor amid slowing GDP growth
- 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 Utermöhl, 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.”
- Malaysia: Less dynamic growth
- Gross financial assets of Malaysia’s private households increased by 6.2% in 2025 to EUR769.0bn, a deceleration from 8.7% growth in 2024, below both the average for the surveyed Asian countries excluding Japan and China (9.8%) and the global average (8.6%). Growth was mainly driven by insurance and pensions, up 11.1%, ahead of securities (2.8%) and deposits (2.3%). As a result, life and pensions and deposits remained the dominating asset classes, with deposits and savings held in the Employees’ Provident Fund accounting for 68% of total financial assets. Adjusted for inflation, Malaysian financial assets grew by 4.7% in real terms in 2025, down from 6.7% in 2024. They have increased by a cumulative 21.9% since 2019 – below both the regional average of 39.6% and, narrowly, the global average of 22.9%. Household liabilities rose by 5.6% to EUR360.0bn, growing more slowly than assets. As a result, net financial assets increased by 6.7% to EUR409.0bn. With net financial assets of EUR11,370 per capita, Malaysia ranked 39th among the world’s richest countries in 2025.
- The interactive “Allianz Global Wealth Map” can be found here on our homepage:
- https://www.allianz.com/en/economic_research/research-data/interactive-wealth-map.html
- You can find the study here on our homepage:
- https://www.allianz.com/en/economic_research/insights/publications/global-wealth-report-2026.html
Media Release: Allianz Global Wealth Report 2026: Markets Drive Record Wealth as AI Raises the Stakes
Munich, 30 September 2026
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