Securities lending revenues look set to reach the highest levels in five years.

Data from IHS Markit, which tracks over $15trn of assets in lending programs across the globe, shows $8.06bn of revenues for the year to 20 December.

That’s more than the $7.81bn earned by the group over the whole of last year and puts the industry on track for its best return since 2012.

“2016 has delivered more than its fair share of shock political outcomes, market volatility and growth concerns, which in turn helped the securities lending industry register its strongest revenue year since 2012,” said analyst Simon Colvin.

The bumper revenue haul has been mostly driven by lenders being able to achieve better pricing for their loans as the weighted average fees achieved year to date, 43.8bps, a 1.1bps uptick.

Demand was flat over the year as the average balance was $1.45trn, the same number registered over 2015.

While the supply did increase by 3.5%, this increase was less than that registered in the revenues generated.

"This means that the assets in lending programs have already returned 5.27bps for the year to date - overtaking the 5.15bps generated last year," Colvin added.

North American equities, led by the US, stocks have been the single largest revenue generator in 2016.

The region’s stocks are on track to beat last year’s 40% tally by roughly 8% after registering a strong 9% jump in loan balances.

Meanwhile, IHS Markit's Colvin says the current demand to borrow S&P 500 constituents is still elevated when compared to levels registered in the three previous years which puts the industry on a good footing heading into 2017.

Electronic car maker Tesla was in high demand and generated high fees throughout the year - generating  $228m of securities lending revenues in total.

In fact, Colvin says the increase in revenues generated in Tesla alone was responsible for the entirety of the revenue lift experienced by US equity securities lending over the last year.

Canadian equities have also saw a significant lift in fees generated - 13% ahead of last year’s tally.

Germany, Hong Kong and ETFs were the least active areas this year.

The UK has helped plug some of the revenue gap as the country has generated over $35m more revenues for the year to 20 December  than the full year 2015 tally,  27% increase.

“Uncertainty surrounding Brexit has been the main catalyst driving the increased UK revenues as short selling in UK equities has surged to a multi-year high since the referendum vote back in June,” added Colvin.

Sweden's $233m of revenues generated from lending the country’s equities puts it on track to deliver 45% more revenues than it did over 2015.

Asia delivered a mixed bag for beneficial owners although revenues are on track to beat last year’s total by 11%.

Japan was the single largest driving force behind this trend - fees needed to borrow Japanese equities jumped by a massive 33%.

Colvin described Hong Kong as a "key disappointment" for the industry year to date as beneficial owners stand to make a third less revenues from lending out equities in the market, compared to 2015.

"This revenue drought is driven in large part by a decline in shorting activity as the number of stocks with more than 3% of their shares outstanding on loan has fallen from 75 to 64," the analyst added.

Malaysian and Thai equities are set to beat last year’s number by 45% and 90% respectively.