The number of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), or those with at least 10 million yuan in investable assets, exceeded one million at the end of 2014, a bank report said on Tuesday.

The figure revealed the number of HNWIs has increased by 330 thousand from 2012 to 2014. China is expected to have 1.26 million HNWIs in 2015, seeing a year-on-year growth of 22 percent, according to 2009 China Private Wealth Report by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company.

It added that last year, there were seven province-level administrations with more than 50 thousand HNWIs in China: Guangdong Province, Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, Shandong Province and Sichuan Province. It is worth mentioning that with 130 thousand HNWIs, Guangdong Province has become China's first province-level administration with more than 100 thousand HNWIs, accounting for 10 percent of the total in China.

Investment in shares and other investment products has become a focus of investment since the stock markets began to heat up in second half of 2014, said the report. The development of China's internet industry and other innovative industries has promoted a surge in the number of the new wealthy, most of whom are HNWIs under the age of 50. At the same time, the report revealed an increase in demand for investing in overseas markets.

China's personal investable assets top 112 trillion yuan, representing an annualized growth rate of 16 percent compared to the value recorded in 2012.

The report reveals that in terms of the number of HNWIs, the gap between China's central and western regions and coastal regions has narrowed as China's central and western regions have demonstrated strong growth. For instance, Sichuan became China's first inland province-level administration with more than 50 thousand HNWIs. With the One Belt and One Road Initiative, the building of Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone, and policy measures on the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province, China's central and western regions will see rapid growth in the number of HNWIs in 2015.