Midkey featured in AFR: Three strategies if you’re asset rich, cash poor and nowhere near retirement
Compared with the rest of the world, Australia has unusually high levels of wealth in property and low levels in cash. In a rising cost environment, this is causing headaches for many. Australians are the second-wealthiest people in the world, but we don’t feel it.
With a median wealth of $US268,424 ($AU381,000) per adult, we are second only to Luxembourg in terms of wealth per capita. Australians are so wealthy that one in 10 of us is a US dollar millionaire, according to UBS.
Yet we feel decidedly average. Consumer confidence fell to a record low of 58.8, according to the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence index in late March, driven by deteriorating trust in our personal finances.
On this index, a score of 100 is considered neutral while anything above indicates optimism among consumers and anything below indicates that consumers are pessimistic.
The UBS Global Wealth Report offers a clue as to why. In 2025, it found that Australians had the highest proportion of their wealth tied up in real estate and the lowest in cash compared to the UK, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.
This article originally appeared in the AFR on 8 April, 2026. To read the full story, visit the AFR site.
