The Chinese mainland is poised to overtake Japan this year as the economy with the world's second-largest number of dollar millionaire households, behind the United States.
And the Asia-Pacific region will surpass North America in four years as the world's wealthiest region, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.
In its annual study of the world's wealth management industry, the global management consulting firm said worldwide wealth grew faster last year than in the previous two years.
But it predicts that revenue growth and profits at wealth management firms will fall over the next five years, as the faster creation of wealth in Asia-Pacific and other developing regions poses challenges that will rob firms of the momentum they started to gain in 2012.
BCG calculates millionaires by their investable assets excluding a primary residence or business. In 2012, the US had the most millionaire households, with 5.9 million, followed by Japan with 1.5 million and the Chinese mainland with 1.3 million.
The US had the largest number of billionaires in 2012, but the highest density of billionaire households was in Hong Kong, followed by Switzerland.
"The global wealth management industry has become increasingly complex," said Brent Beardsley, a co-author of the report and global leader of BCG's asset and wealth management section.
"With the mature economies of the old world and the developing economies of the new world moving at different speeds, wealth managers in different regions are grappling with tough sets of problems," he said.
The report, released on Thursday in New York, states that "new world" regions such as Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, are expected to account for nearly 70 percent of the growth in global private wealth in the next five years.
By the end of 2017, the Asia-Pacific region will see its private wealth grow to an estimated $48.1 trillion, surpassing North America as the world's wealthiest region, the report said.
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