460,000 'rich' with more than 1 billion won in financial assets...the lowest growth rate

As of the end of last year, the total number of "rich" with financial assets of more than 1 billion won in Korea was 461,000, which is estimated to be 0.9% of the total population.

According to the "2024 Korea Rich Report" statistics published by KB Financial Group's Management Research Institute, the number of rich people increased 1% from 2022, but the growth rate was the lowest since 2011, when the tally began.

As of the end of last year, their total financial assets increased 2.9 percent to KRW 2,826 trillion, which was attributed to the KOSPI index's 18.7% rebound last year.

Dividing by financial asset size, 91.5% (422,000 people) are "assets" with "less than KRW 1 billion to KRW 10 billion", "high-assets" with "less than KRW 10 billion to KRW 30 billion" accounted for 6.3% (29,000 people), and "ultra-assets" with more than KRW 30 billion accounted for 2.2%, accounting for 11,000.

The detailed asset composition of the rich in Korea was 32 percent for residential housing, 11.6 percent for liquidity financial assets such as cash, and 10.9 percent for non-residential housing.

The return experience rate by financial investment product was the highest in stocks at 32.5%, followed by funds at 9% and maturity refund-type insurance at 7.3%.

In addition, the sources from which the rich accumulated assets were mainly business income and real estate investment, with 32.8% and 26.3%, respectively, and the average amount of seed money for asset growth was 740 million won.

The rich said they collected the seed money at the average age of 42.

In addition, 60.8% of the rich said they had inherited and given cash, deposits, residential properties, and non-residential properties, while 24.5% had already given cash, deposits, and residential properties to their spouses or children.

Among them, 75.5% were investing in overseas assets for "more than three years," with 47.5% of preferred overseas investment products being foreign stocks and 37.3% of foreign currency deposits, insurance and funds.