The World Wealth Report is now in its 16th year. The new partnership also includes the annual Asia-Pacific survey.

“The reports are supported by both primary and secondary research, updated annually using Capgemini’s proprietary Lorenz curve methodology and are widely read by top executives in the banking, securities and insurance industries,” RBC and Capgemini said in a statement.

Last year’s report showed that the population of high net worth individuals rose 8.3 per cent to 10.9 million in 2010, with these clients holding $42.7 trillion in investable assets – up 9.7 per cent. It also showed they are becoming younger, more female, more trusting in their firms, more willing to take investment risks and are more widely represented in nations such as India.

In a sign of rising gaps between the wealthy and super-wealthy, the number of ultra high net worth individuals rose by 10.2 per cent to 103,000 last year, while their wealth rose by 11.5 per cent, decelerating from the 21.5 per cent growth rate in 2009, that report said. The report covers 71 countries, and measures wealth by reference to national accounts to obtain savings data, measuring assets by book value and are adjusted to reflect stock indices.

"After many successful years of partnering with Capgemini on the World Wealth Reports, we’ve made the decision to focus primarily on proprietary surveys," a BoA Merrill Lynch spokesperson told this publication. 

The move by RBC to partner with Capgemini over this report comes in the wake of reports, which Bank of America Merrill Lynch has not denied – that it intends to sell its non-US wealth management business.