The tiny city-state of Monaco, where the annual FundForum conference for the asset management industry is held, has the world’s largest density of millionaires, nearly a third of its population.
The research comes from consultancy WealthInsight, which defines a millionaire as a person with more than $1 million (€740,000) in investable assets, excluding their primary homes.
After Monaco come Zurich and Geneva, both of which are comparatively small cities in terms of population but in which millionaires account for a large proportion – 27% in the case of Zurich.
After that come much larger cities in which the density of millionaires is lower, though their overall numbers may be higher. In fourth-placed New York, with a population of more than eight million, 4.6% of people are millionaires. Frankfurt and London are in fifth and sixth place.
“Favourable tax and outstanding location are important criteria for attracting clusters of millionaires, but so too is ready access to wealth managers and private banks,” says Oliver Williams, an analyst at WealthInsight.
“Switzerland’s two financial hubs of Zurich and Geneva are traditional havens of private banking, but also London, the world’s third largest home of millionaires.”
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