Fees from debt capital markets work have increased by almost a third in 2012, according to the two largest data providers, helping to offset declining revenues across investment banks’ other advisory and lending businesses.

According to Thomson Reuters' preliminary figures for the full year 2012, investment banks have earned $69.4bn in revenues from M&A, capital markets and loans this year - down 7% on the same period a year ago. Rival data provider Dealogic puts the figure at $63.6bn, a 9% decrease on the whole of 2011.