China's individual investable assets second in world

Jack Ma (third from right), executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, seen among Chinese tech millionaires during the opening ceremony of an academic symposium in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo by Xu Kangping/For China Daily]

The value of China's individual investable assets reached 126 trillion yuan ($18.28 trillion) in 2016, 1.7 times the country's gross national product, ranking second in the world in terms of scale, according to a report released by Industrial Bank Co and global consulting firm Boston Consulting Group on Thursday.

China's individual investable assets will grow steadily in the next few years and reach 220 trillion yuan by 2021, said He Dayong, manager of the Financial and Insurance Industry Department at BCG.

The number of Chinese high-net-worth families, with more than six million yuan in investable assets, has surpassed 2.1 million, and that group is set to reshape a wealth management market of 110 trillion yuan in the next five years, providing enormous opportunity for the development of private banking, according to the report.

With the rapid asset accumulation of these families and the maturation of the capital market, the number of clients of domestic private banking has exceeded 500,000. Assets under management reached nearly eight trillion yuan after 10 years of development, according to the report.

Most of the wealth of high-net-worth families comes from entrepreneurship, while investments and salaries rank second and third in wealth sources. Most people with high-net-worth assets are between 40 and 60 years old.

Participants of an analysis on China's high-net-worth families are satisfied with their investment returns in 2016. About 91 percent of them have gained profits from investments in the previous year and about 45 percent of participants' investment return rate surpassed 10 percent.

Most of the participants are optimistic about China's macro economy, with 93 percent believing that their families' assets will remain stable or increase steadily over the next few years.