Incredible wealth: What's wrong with the UBS Wealth Report in Russia
Another report on global wealth from UBS bank showed a significant increase in this indicator in Russia since the beginning of the decade. This is the second best result in the world, after South Korea. In many ways, the growth could be explained by the strengthening of the ruble exchange rate. However, in fact, these figures should be taken with great caution, since analysts at the largest Swiss bank have several times given very dubious data on the level of wealth of Russians and residents of Central and Eastern Europe in general. Izvestia investigated why UBS cannot be fully trusted.
The best after Korea
Adjusted for inflation, wealth has not increased in all countries of the world in the first five years. For example, in the UK it collapsed by almost 23%, while in the Netherlands it decreased by more than 14%. Against the background of this drop, the 37% jump in the wealth of Russians recorded by Swiss analysts looks like an undoubted breakthrough. In addition to South Korea (a fantastic 55% increase), Croatia also performed well (+29%).
However, when switching to absolute values, questions begin to arise. Direct data for 2025 is not available for Russia, but if we rely on the basic estimates of the Swiss in previous years (for example, for the "initial" 2020) and apply this record growth to them, it turns out that the average wealth of one adult in Russia is about $40 thousand. This figure is completely inconsistent with either internal macroeconomic statistics or ordinary arithmetic.
To understand the scale of the error, it is enough to compare the indicators of the two countries with a comparable level of nominal economic output. According to the estimates of relevant institutions for 2025, GDP per capita (at the current exchange rate) In Portugal, it is in the region of $ 32 thousand. In Russia, the same figure is about $18 thousand. The difference in macroeconomic returns is less than two times. At the same time, the UBS report estimates the average wealth of one adult in Portugal at $195,000. The presence of an almost fivefold difference in accumulated capital with a two-fold ratio of GDP contradicts the rules of the accumulation economy.
Before the takeover by UBS Bank, Credit Suisse analysts had been involved in the publication of the Global Wealth Report for many years. Their assessment methods for Central and Eastern European countries consistently produced strange results. In the 2010s, they managed to estimate the average wealth of an adult Ukrainian at $40. The entire accumulated capital of a huge country with millions of apartments and cars was equated to the cost of an ordinary dinner in a European restaurant. The wealth of Russians in those same years was estimated at a ridiculous few thousand dollars. Another absurd example: the Swiss rated the average amount of capital in Poland, a country that was the main beneficiary of European subsidies and showed rapid economic growth, lower than in Bulgaria.
Why was there an underestimation?
Such incidents arise due to the linking of some Western models to stock market capitalization and the development of institutional finance. In their view, wealth is stocks, bonds, and shares in pension funds. If a country's stock market is small relative to its GDP, and citizens do not keep savings in mutual funds, the algorithm automatically records them as poor. But the main thing is that the UBS methodology does an extremely poor job of accounting for residential real estate purchased without loans. In the West, a house worth $500,000 is often burdened with a mortgage of $400,000, and a person's real wealth is only a fifth of the asset price. In Russia, the vast majority of apartments are directly owned by citizens through privatization or direct purchases. UBS models often ignore assets for which there are no regular bank statements.
Let's try to calculate the real well-being of citizens based on verifiable internal data. Residential real estate remains the main asset. There are about 4 billion square meters in the country. they say, if you subtract the frankly dilapidated and illiquid fund. For calculations, a conservative price of 120 thousand rubles per 1 square meter can be applied (according to the Ministry of Construction, which is lower than the market price, but for the latter it is difficult to establish the "average value for the hospital" without distortion). The total value of residential real estate in the country will be equal to 480 trillion rubles. Dividing this amount by 111 million adults (the Swiss rating takes into account only adults), we get 4.3 million rubles per person. At an average exchange rate of 90 rubles per dollar, this gives almost $48 thousand. Real estate alone already covers the entire amount of wealth calculated by UBS.
The second component is financial savings. The data of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation allows us to calculate them with high accuracy. Deposits and accounts of the population in banks exceeded 51.6 trillion rubles. And this is without taking into account escrow accounts, on which about 6 trillion more are frozen. Cash, including foreign currency, is estimated by the regulator at about 16-18 trillion rubles, and dollar and euro savings "under the pillow" account for an impressive part of this amount (about $ 90-100 billion). Assets in the brokerage accounts of citizens add about 9-10 trillion more to the total piggy bank. In total, the gross financial assets of Russians reach 77 trillion rubles.
Debts are low
The debt burden must be deducted from this amount. The total debt of the population on mortgages and consumer loans is about 36.2 trillion rubles. The debt-free net financial capital is 40.8 trillion rubles. Per adult, this gives 367 thousand rubles, or about $4.1 thousand.
The third major asset is transportation. The Russian fleet consists of about 45 million passenger cars. Taking into account the age structure of the fleet and prices on the secondary market, the average cost of a car is at least 1 million rubles. The total cost of the fleet is estimated at 45 trillion rubles. This adds another 405 thousand rubles, or $4.5 thousand, to each adult citizen.
Putting these components together, we get a base level of $47.8 thousand in real estate, $4.1 thousand in finance and $4.5 thousand in transportation. The final figure is $56.4 thousand per adult.
It is important to emphasize here that a huge amount of property has been left outside the calculations. Summer cottages and country houses, garages, accumulated gold, household appliances and shares in small businesses were not taken into account. A full inventory of these assets will surely add another 15-20% to the amount received (but it's hard to say for sure).
The 37% growth rate estimated by UBS Bank really reflects the real processes in Russia. In recent years, nominal and real wages have been rising in the country, housing prices have risen against the background of mortgage programs, and high deposit rates have allowed capital to increase rapidly due to compound interest. At best, we can say that the Swiss correctly caught the trend, but it is actually impossible to rely on their calculations (including when setting the inequality indicator, which in Russia, according to UBS, is the second in the world after the UAE).
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