A new wealth report from international bank Credit Suisse forecasts that the number of millionaires in Canada will rise by 54% and reach two million people in the coming five years.
Credit Suisse’s latest Global Wealth Report expects that the number of millionaires in Canada will grow at a faster rate than any other developed country, including the United States, between 2018 and 2023.
Canada had 1.3 million millionaires at the start of this year, and is currently ranked third in the world — behind China and Russia — out of 24 large economies when it comes to the biggest percentage gain in the population of millionaires forecast for the coming five years. In
comparison, the number of millionaires in the U.S. is expected to grow 18% to more than 20 million individuals in the same time period.
Credit Suisse used financial and non-financial assets of wealth like home ownership and economic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and inflation from the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic outlook database to create its forecast models.
High property values will continue to be an important driver of wealth in Canada, the report said.
Another reason for the big forecast increase in millionaires is that there are currently a lot of
people in Canada with wealth just below $1 million U.S., said Credit Suisse.
Currently, more than 46% of Canadians have wealth between $100,000 to $1 million, according to the report. The figures for millionaires in Canada in the Credit Suisse report is in U.S. dollars, and the global study used the IMF forecast exchange rate, which expects the loonie to rise 11.4% to U.S. 86.3 cents by 2023.
