Research by the Central Bank has shown that 45.6% of Malta's households managed to save some of their income in 2016, up from 36.6% in 2013, and 23.7% in 2010.

The Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) found that 97.1% of all households held at least one type of financial asset, two percentage points more than in 2013, with the median value of financial assets held standing at €22,512.

Bank deposits were the most common type of financial assets held by households: 96.4% of those sampled in 2016.

The survey also looked at the total household debt across all those households which have some form of debt, which includes both mortgages and non-mortgage debt such as debt on credit cards and other assets. The median value worked out to be an estimated €40,000, a significant increase over previous surveys predominantly driven by higher mortgage debt.

In the meantime, the median value of mortgages stood at €80,000.

The ratio of median mortgage debt to the gross household income was 221.7% in 2016, an increase of 8.8% from 2014. This increase reflected the median mortgage debt, which may partly reflect increasing property prices and longer loan maturities, the bank said.

In spite of this increase in the median mortgage debt, the mortgage debt servicing cost was estimated at 14.5% of the income of those households, half a percentage point more than in the previous round, reflecting declining interest rates. 

Some of the survey's findings were published last year.

KEY FINDINGS  

In 2016, there were close to 170,000 households in Malta, with an average of 2.5 members per household (2010: 2.9 members).

30% of the households have just two members, while 25% are one-person. Less than a fourth of households had four or more persons (2010: 33%).

80.6% of households own their main residence (2013: 80.1%) – either outright or with a mortgage.

67.4% of total gross household income came from employment. Income from pensions and social transfers accounted for 13.6% and 2.9%, respectively. Income from financial investment stood at only 2.1% of the total. 

The median gross income of Maltese households in 2016 was estimated at €25,417, an increase of 23.6% since 2010, which was largely driven by a rise in employee income.

The estimated household median net wealth (the total holdings of real and financial assets net of liabilities) stood at €236,529 in 2016. 

The HFCS-based Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, shows that in 2016, inequality in household net wealth edged up to 0.60 (2010: 0.57).