55 Albanians possess USD 7 bln, report shows

TIRANA, Sept. 25 – Albania has 55 individuals with a wealth of at least 30 million USD each, according to findings of a World Ultra Wealth Report, ranking the country 37th among a list of 45 European countries. Their total wealth is estimated at 7 billion USD.
What’s particular about Albania is that while the number of millionaires dropped by 0.4 percent, their total wealth rose by 4.1 percent. Slovakia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Montenegro, all rank worse than Albania in terms of the number of millionaires and their wealth.
The World Ultra Wealth Report, published by Wealth-X focuses solely on persons with a net worth of US $30 million and above (after accounting for shares in public and private companies, residential and investment properties, art collections, planes, cash and other assets), providing unique data, insights and trends related to this highly sought-after community.
Data show the overwhelming majority of 95 percent of Albanian depositors have managed to save up to 2.5 million lek (Euro 17,667, USD 22,737) which is the threshold making them fully safe and guaranteed by the Deposit Insurance Agency.
The remaining 5 percent of depositors having more than 2.5 million lek in their bank accounts possess around 58 percent of the total amount of deposits in the 16 commercial banks operating in Albania, according to data presented in the annual report of the Deposit Insurance Agency. The data reconfirm the deep social gap between the rich and the poor. Average deposits for the rich stand at 55,000 USD while the average savings for the overwhelming majority is at around USD 2,000.