The amount of offshore wealth, defined as assets housed in a country other than the investor's legal residence or tax domicile, increased by $300 billion to $7.8 trillion because of market performance and asset inflows, primarily from emerging markets. The proportion of wealth held offshore declined to 6.4 percent from 6.6 percent in part because of stricter regulations in Europe and North America.
Global wealth will increase at a compound annual rate of almost 6 percent from year-end 2010 through 2015 to about $162 trillion, the study said. Wealth in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, is expected to rise at almost double the global rate, which will result in the region's share of global wealth increasing to 23 percent in 2015.
The report's authors also looked at the performance of 120 wealth management firms worldwide. Revenue increased by an average of 8.5 percent, and assets under management increased by 7.5 percent, down from 12.8 percent a year earlier.
"Wealth management has been a fabulous business and going forward it's still going to be a very good business, but a little less attractive because of more demanding clients, pricing pressure and increased regulatory costs," Damisch said.