There are 188,000 millionaires in Italy. Those who that have at least $1 million or e820,000, at their disposal now make up one in every 300 Italians; the average sum of one of these bank accounts is in excess of e1.8 million.

According to the 2003 report on the worlds richest carried out by Merrill Lynch-Capgemini, the past year has seen 22,000 Italians entering the gold list of millionaires for the first time. This is a growth of 13.25 per cent over the previous year. If accumulated, the wealth of these 188,000 would be around e343 billion, an increase from the e300 billion of 2002.