The financial wealth of Romanians is growing above the Eastern European average, reaching 300 billion dollars in 2023

The financial wealth of Romanians will grow at an average rate of approximately 9% over the next five years, one percentage point faster than the average forecast for Eastern Europe and three percentage points above the average expected global growth rate, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report.

The financial wealth of Romanians, valued at 300 billion dollars, represented 5.7% of the financial wealth of the Eastern European region in 2023, experiencing an annual increase of 15.5% in the period 2018-2023. The BCG report estimates that the financial wealth of Romanians will grow by 8.6% per year, in the next 5 years, reaching the value of 400 billion dollars in 2028.

The share of long-term investments, non-investable wealth, consisting mainly of life insurance and pension savings, represents a percentage of 40% of the total financial wealth of the Romanian people, well above the Eastern European average (31%), but also above the average global (35%). At the same time, the share of investable wealth, which includes cash, deposits, investment funds, stocks and bonds, is slowly but steadily declining, an opposite trend to what we see globally.

Krisztian Horvath, Partner and Associate Director, Wealth Management, BCG: “Romanians keep a relatively low share of their wealth in cash and deposits (34%), compared to the average in Eastern Europe (44%). We also see a very high share of other investments, 20%, in unlisted stocks and smaller asset classes, which is rare in other regions, where the global average is only 2% and the Eastern European average is of 8%”.

The distribution of financial wealth shows a mixed picture in Romania. On the one hand, it is healthy from the perspective of the fact that up to half of the financial wealth of Romanians is owned by people with assets below 250 thousand dollars, a much higher proportion than the global average of 30%. In contrast, the share of the very rich, with financial wealth greater than $100 million, is also significantly higher than the global average. Romanians with assets of over 100 million dollars own 23% of the total financial wealth, compared to 14% of the very rich globally.

“In the next five years we expect a strong growth in attractive segments for private banks, such as those with financial assets between 250 thousand and 20 million dollars. The expected growth of this population segment, from approximately 60,000 to 85,000, offers attractive acquisition opportunities for banks offering customized solutions, dedicated to this segment”, Krisztian Horvath also stated.