Russia, along with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, is home to the wealthiest expats in the world, according to a new survey conducted by HSBC. On the other side of the spectrum the expatriates with the lowest finances reside in Europe.
HSBC quizzed 4,127 foreign professionals with regards to their personal finances to attain the results and found that Russia came top of a list of 25 nations, followed by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the rest of the UAE, with Singapore rounding off the top five.
The survey discovered that the expats living and working in these countries commanded the highest salaries, in Russia around 36 percent of expats were said to be earning more than $250,000 per year, up from 30 percent last year, yet in Spain, one of the lowest ranking countries, over 60 percent of expats made less than $60,000.
The findings also showed that expats in the top ranking countries were more likely to have luxury items such as yachts, swimming pools and multiple properties. Overall most expats, 66 percent, maintained that they were happy with their incomes and that they lived comfortable lives, even those in the lower ranking countries.
Lisa Wood a spokeswoman for HSBC said: “The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies have fared well over the last year and as a result we've seen that these expat locations are particularly strong when it comes to expat finances. Eurozone countries were the worst-performing when looking at purely financial criteria and subsequently all featured in the bottom quartile of our league table.”
The countries on the bottom of the pile were The Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium and the UK. Ms Wood speculated that the Eurozone’s recent troubles were no doubt contributing to the lacklustre fortunes of its expat workers: “It is clear that the economic volatility that has plagued the U.K. and euro zone has had a significant effect on expat finances since 2009.”