The rich keep getting richer. The world's dollar millionaires will be 50 per cent richer within five years according to the latest annual world report. The six million people with financial assets above $1 million (€936,000) will see their collective wealth rise about 9 per cent a year to reach $32.7 trillion by the end of 2003, according to the 1999 report by investment bank, Merrill Lynch and Gemini Consulting.

These High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs), as the report calls them, became 12 per cent richer in 1998 when their combined assets reached $21.6 trillion.

They achieved the feat despite economic crisis in emerging markets and a period of near-panic about the world economic order after Russia's devaluation last August.

"HNWIs with well-constructed portfolios were not adversely affected by last year's turmoil and those that rode out the storm made significant gains by year-end," according to Mr Steven Beck of Gemini Consulting.

They were helped by the recovery of US and European stock markets in the latter part of the year as well as by investing more onshore and switching from cash into equities. But a minority of millionaires suffered in 1998, usually by getting out of stocks and shares too early or because they were overly exposed in emerging markets and hedge funds.

Banks servicing the rich need to understand their prized customers are cleverer than previous generations, according to the report. "They are information-hungry, ITliterate, mobile, global and require more sophisticated financial products," the report said, urging private banks to exploit new technologies like data-mining and the Internet.

The old adage that the rich get richer is holding true. The report said millionaires in the US and western Europe accounted for 58 per cent of all HNWI assets. "The forecasts do not anticipate a significant change in the regional distribution of HNWI wealth," the report said.