UBS’s role as lead financial adviser to Florida-based EverBank on its $2.5 billion sale has underscored an impressive run for the Swiss bank in finance sector mergers and acquisitions that has already seen it advise on the year's two biggest such deals.

While JP Morgan tops the global M&A rankings for announced deals targeting the financial sector - as it has for the past two years - UBS lies second. At the same point in 2015, the Swiss bank had ranked tenth. In no year since records began more than two decades ago has UBS ranked so highly at this point in the year, nor has it ever ended a year among the top three advisers, according to the data provider Dealogic.