Amid liquidity-driven booms in the real estate and stock markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people with assets of more than 1 billion won ($838,000) increased by over 10 percent last year from a year earlier, a report showed. 

The number of Koreans with financial assets worth over 1 billion won stood at 390,000 last year, taking up 0.76 percent of the total population, according to the Korea Wealth Report 2021 released by KB Financial Group Research Institute.

The latest figure jumped nearly 39,000, or 10.9 percent from 2019’s tally, the second-highest growth since the report was first published in 2011, after the 14.4 percent rise estimated in 2019.

By region, 45.5 percent, or 179,000 people, were living in Seoul, followed by Gyeonggi Province and Busan with 86,000 and 29,000, respectively. (cjh@heraldcorp.com)