Bangladesh's consumers are among the most optimistic in Asia Pacific thanks to their bullish outlook on the country's economy, quality of life and stockmarket, according to a survey by Mastercard.

The country recorded the largest gain of 11.2 points to hit 82.8 points in Mastercard Index of Consumer Confidence in the second half of 2016 – a significant improvement in the overall consumer confidence.

A score above 80 points classifies a country as 'very optimistic' and a 90-plus score categorises a country as 'extremely optimistic'.

India, with a score of 95.3, tops the index as the most optimistic market in Asia Pacific, with Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines and Bangladesh rounding off the top five, it said yesterday.

Bangladesh experienced a small improvement in consumer confidence in the previous survey.

But now the country recorded the largest improvement among the 17 Asia Pacific markets with increases across all five components and a more than 10 points gain in outlook on stockmarket (+24.6), quality of life (+12.0) and economy (+11.7).

Overall, consumer confidence in Asia Pacific continues to hold steady, showing stability in nine out of 17 markets.

With an increase of 1.2 points in the overall score from the first half of 2016 to 60.9 points in the second half of the year, Asia Pacific sits just above the 60-point optimistic mark.

Between November and December last year, 8,723 respondents, aged 18 to 64 in 17 Asia Pacific markets, were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors: the economy, employment prospects, regular income prospects, the stockmarket and their quality of life.

The index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero as the most pessimistic, 100 as the most optimistic and between 40 and 60 as neutral.

Consumers in Bangladesh are confident than those in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. 

Eight of the 17 markets saw deterioration in confidence levels compared to the first half of 2016. The biggest decline in optimism levels was observed in Taiwan, followed by Malaysia, and Myanmar.

The survey began in the first half of 1993 and has been conducted twice yearly since. Seventeen Asia Pacific markets now participate in the survey. Bangladesh was added to the survey in 2012.

Mastercard operates the world's fastest payments processing network.