Global investment banking fees in the year to date have reached their highest since just before the financial crisis, coming in at $76.1 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The global fee pool is up 14 percent to a ten-year high in the first nine months of 2017, compared to the same period last year, driven by a strong rise in fees from capital markets activity.

The Americas accounted for around 50 percent of the total at $38 billion, the data showed, up 11.6 percent from a year ago.

In Europe, banking fees rose 19 percent to a two-year high of $17.5 billion, while fees from Japan reached their highest level since Thomson Reuters records began in 2000 at $4.1 billion.

U.S. banks are in the top five positions in the global investment banking fee rankings with a 27.9 percent share, down from a high of 44.3 percent in 2001.

JPMorgan is on track to retain its spot at the top of the fee table in 2017, earning $5.0 billion so far compared to Goldman Sachs in second place with $4.4 billion.

Barclays was the best performing European bank, bringing in $2.6 billion.

Fees from equity capital markets business rose 42 percent to $16.6 billion over the period, which includes a 91 percent increase in fees from initial public offerings to $5.4 billion.

However, uncertainty surrounding the impact of new U.S. President Donald Trump's policies meant mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity fell, causing a 1 percent slip in M&A fees to $20.1 billion.

The biggest fall was in the United States, where M&A activity fell 12 percent in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period in 2016.

M&A activity for European targets totalled $629.3 billion during the first nine months of 2017, an increase of 29 percent compared to 2016, when Britain's vote to leave the European Union subdued dealmaking.