That’s not good news.
It indicates that the average wealth in the country has dropped to below $5,000 per person, above that being mustard green, below that blue.
Besides India, only a handful of other Asian countries fall under the blue category – the lowest of four – together with most of Africa.
Specifically, individual wealth in India dropped to $4,250 in the year that ended in June from $5,300 a year earlier, according to a study the bank released this week.
That’s nearly a 20% decrease and much worse than the world-wide average, which saw individual wealth decline 5.2% to $49,000 per person, the report found.
In India, wealth per adult–measured in terms of financial and non-financial assets like real estate – averaged much lower than in other major emerging markets. An average adult in China has assets worth $20,452; in Brazil this figure is $24,600 and in Russia $12,161, according to Credit Suisse.
Despite the growth of its economy, India was worse hit in percentage terms than debt-strapped Europe, which saw a 13.6% decline in wealth per adult.
But data for India is less bad than it may appear at first. Declining wealth levels are measured in dollars, not in rupees. The main reason India fared badly in global wealth comparisons is that, over the past year, the Indian currency lost around 20% of its value against the U.S. dollar. (See more on the rupee’s decline here.)
Within India, though, the report found that wealth inequality remains a major issue. The country’s population is disproportionately concentrated at the bottom of the wealth pyramid: 95% of people have less than $10,000. (World-wide, the figure is 69.3% of the population.)
Yet India is home to many of the world’s wealthiest 10%. Although the figure dropped by half-a-million people last year, it’s still a sizeable number: 3.6 million people.
Among them are around 1,550 super rich individuals with assets worth $50 million or more. In India, Mukesh Ambani tops this list with a personal fortune of around $19 billion.
India’s middle class still remains comparatively small – just 3% of the global total – a share the report describes as “stagnant” in recent years. However, Credit Suisse believes this will change in the next five years, when it expects India to add 40 million adults to its middle class, defined as individuals holding wealth between $10,000 and $100,000.
Overall, the Asia-Pacific region (excluding India) did a better job than other parts of the world at containing its losses: it overtook Europe to become the richest region in the world.
Looking forward, Credit Suisse expects global economic growth to pick up from its current slowdown and total household wealth to increase by nearly 50% over the next five years.