The future of money and the way we see money is changing drastically. Wealth forecasters and futurists look into the crystal ball for Africa.
The past two decades have generated $160 trillion in ‘paper wealth’, according to McKinsey’s 2023 Wealth Report. However, growth has been sluggish and there has been rising inequalities. According to the report, Africa’s long-term economic growth has been slow. The continent is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population, but its economic performance has not been in tandem. Although this may seem bleak, reports indicate that Africa could add $1.4 trillion to its economy, almost doubling the value added by services today, were it to match the productivity growth of Asia’s strongest services.
In looking at wealth holistically, mapping out the trends for 2024 tells us that currently, the continent holds investable wealth worth about $2.4 trillion, and according to the recently-published Africa Wealth Report 2023 by Henley & Partners in collaboration with New World Wealth, the population of millionaires is expected to increase by 42% over the next 10 years. Speaking to experts in wealth management and advisory services as well as a futurist, there is some optimism in looking at trends that go beyond just the number.
1. More Millennials, More Gen Zs, and More Women. Probably the biggest and most significant gear shift, but not new, will be with these different groups of individuals. According to RBC Wealth Management, globally, in 2015, women held 30% of all wealth controlled by individuals or families, and about 44% had grown their wealth independently as entrepreneurs. UBS’s Women’s Wealth 2030 tells a story of how women’s wealth has seen unprecedented growth over the last decade. Women now control 32% of the world’s wealth. This will rise at a compound annual growth rate of 5.7% to $97 trillion by 2024.
“In my opinion, perhaps the fastest-growing cohort of millionaires in the next several years is going to be women,” says Delphine Govender, owner and Chief Investment Officer at Perpetua Investment Managers.
According to Govender, after centuries of being structurally excluded and marginalized in the broader spectrum of wealth- creating activities, there is an exponential rise in economically- empowered women. This can be attributed to several factors but is centered on the tremendous global focus on gender parity in all aspects of society as norms are finally starting to shift.
“This is being supported by directly targeted policy initiatives to promote gender equality. More specific factors include a material increase in women entrepreneurs and the increasing support of women-led enterprises. The entire focus of gender lens investing (a fast-growing area) seeks to specifically allocate capital to women- led businesses, whose value chain and products also benefit women,” Govender tells FORBES AFRICA. Andrew Möller, CEO at Citadel Investment Services, adds: “We are also finding what appeals quite strongly to women is they place a much higher value on trust, and building relationships, a opposed to let’s say their male counterparts who would chase more of the metric of return to performance.”
Furthermore, Govender is seeing more adolescent girls being mentored from a school-going age about their career paths and this is starting to light a fire at a young age about the potential these younger girls have as they contemplate adulthood.
This is something both Möller and global futurist Jack Uldrich agree on with the rise of wealth millennials.
“We will absolutely see the growth,” Uldrich says. “Just the sheer amount of wealth that will be first transferred to them as my parents’ generation dies off, as my generation dies off. And we bequeath it to younger people. But they are also rapidly ascending leadership positions, and in many places across the globe, many of these companies still do need people to do their jobs. I think we’ll see the millennials increase their wealth, and then they will get into leadership positions. But I would say they think about money and wealth differently than we did.”
“Millennials are much more cost- sensitive than a lot of your other guys,” Möller adds. “They are obviously much more digitally driven. Millennials have a much higher requirement for transparency. In terms of the structures, and interestingly enough, on the transfer of wealth, millennials are much more open to switching advisors.”
2.More Entrepreneurship. Notably, there are 52 African-born billionaires globally, and only 23 (44%) still live on African soil. Henley & Partners have noted that this is a significant concern as many billionaires are entrepreneurs and company founders who therefore can create significant employment in their host countries. “Entrepreneurs typically make the best clients,” Möller chuckles. “Why? Because entrepreneurs know what they know. And they’ve gone and they’ve made the wealth but in a very specific area. I am happy to say that the future wealth is definitely entrepreneurs and I do think that a lot of wealth management firms will be sourcing their acquisition strategies from them. Entrepreneurs certainly have the biggest growth potential.”
Many reports show that a crucial part of this would be to create more relevant educational curricula, train employees to build the skills and knowledge Africa needs, link talent with job opportunities, and empower entrepreneurs to enhance the continent’s workforce and produce next-generation leaders.
“Indeed, African talent could become the continent’s largest export—and given shifts we are seeing in how work gets done, this talent may not need to leave the continent to fulfill this demand,” the Henley & Partners report reads.
3. More Investments = More Very-High-Net-Worth Individuals (VHNWIs) + Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals (UHNWIs). As Africa is rich in human and natural resources, individuals are finding different opportunities in a multitude of sectors. As the years go on, Africa’s growth will increase, due to aspects such as the internet, smartphones, and even renewable energy, says Uldrich.
“I think we’re going to see, and we already are seeing with the number of satellites that are put in, more satellites that are being delivered; high-speed internet access everywhere in the globe and all across Africa. Most people, not everyone, already have smartphones and I think with the advances
in renewable energy [wealth], it’s going to get better because those three are going to lead to increased economic growth, which in turn will in fact manifest itself in wealth as we currently define it. So I would tell you I’m absolutely bullish on the long-term prospects for Africa.”
According to StatsSA, as of 2022, approximately 138,000 HNWIs lived in Africa, each with $1 million or more net assets, excluding government funds. Statista further added that the total private wealth in Africa amounted to $2.4 trillion in 2022.
The amount was accumulated by over 140,000 individuals, including millionaires, centimillionaires, and billionaires. Compared to 2021, the continent counted 2,000 more millionaires.
Möller says reports predict that in the next decade, the number of African millionaires is going to probably increase by 42% and that will be a number of approximately 195,000 ultra-high-net-worth participants.
“That’s what the forecasts are saying but when you put that overlay of what’s been happening in the global environment on top of this, the numbers forecast could be slightly different,” Möller adds.
“And by this, I mean, in 2021, there was a rapid growth of ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the world. That was on the back of unprecedented growth stimulus, there was a very low- interest rate environment, there was high liquidity at the time, and there were significant stock market gains that happened in the economic environment. “Whilst we certainly believe that is going to be a growth, we’re not quite sure that it’s going to be the growth of their 42%.” “Perhaps the most pressing aspect affecting Africans and South Africans is the quantum of their wealth that is invested offshore vs onshore,” Govender adds.
“This continues to be a significant source of debate. As liquidity in domestic public markets dries up, many local investors are starting to question the extent of their home bias.”
4. AI May Redefine Wealth. Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly been finding a place in the world of work, so it should come as no surprise that it has found itself in the world of wealth.
Möller believes that the uptake of AI will actually be beneficial when it comes to wealth, particularly for wealth managers and their clients.
“As AI is starting to develop, this thing of digitization is gathering more momentum,” Möller says.
“It might sound perverse but I think digitization is going to make businesses more client-centric and the link between digitization and AI and client centricity is very simply going to open up the advisor’s diaries allowing them to simply focus on what they should be always doing and that is building relationships. It’s going to de-clutter.”
However, Uldrich believes that the world’s leading experts working on artificial intelligence are being a bit disingenuous in stating that it is going to transform the nature of work.
According to the forecaster, long-term, this may be true but short- to mid-term, there’s going to be a lot of displacement. This is why Uldrich believes that the way one defines wealth should likely change.
“Even in the age of AI,” Uldrich adds, “humans still have agency and we have to create our desired future… Most futurists I think are optimistic about the future, and they speak of an abundant future. But to tie back to wealth, I think what’s going to happen is for the most part, most people in the world will have all of their material needs met, but that will create a new problem.
“It will be sort of a spiritual vacuum. My point is I don’t think that we will define wealth simply in terms of dollars and material possessions, people will have those things and then they will say, ‘oh, what really matters?’. And I think we will see a major shift in how we define wealth.”
5. More Creatives. It doesn’t matter how much AI can do, the one sub-set of entrepreneurs, employees, brands, and businesses that will be safe, will be in the creative economy. “We’re going to see almost a new renaissance in [creativity],” Uldrich says. “Because artificial intelligence is really good at mimicking the human mind or intelligence, what it cannot do is imagine. It can give you the impression it is creating, but it’s not. All it’s doing is taking existing pieces and rearranging them and I would say that is a component of creativity and imagination. But we think with our heart, with our body, and that’s what AI can’t yet do.”
Govender believes the creative economy is contributing meaningfully to growth in the number of millionaires and to some extent this is underpinning why we should expect more female millionaires. “Whether in fields of design, the arts, or entertainment, we are seeing the pursuit of a far more balanced economy as well as a greater value being broadly attached to the creative economy,” she says. “Social media has resulted in an entirely new slew of careers in terms of influencers and content creators – which is channeling income into the hands of many self-made individuals who no longer have to rely on corporates being their employers.
“While traditional careers such as medicine and law will continue to exist, the ascent of an increased number of well-rewarded careers within the creative domains means we now have many more industries and professions capable of producing wealthy individuals.”