When two of Europe’s corporate titans sat down to negotiate a merger this year, they called American banks.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its lead adviser. France’s Renault SA hired a boutique bank stacked with Goldman alumni. In a deal that would reshape Europe’s auto industry, the continental banks that had sustained Fiat and Renault for more than a century were muscled aside by a pair of Wall Street deal makers.

A decade after fueling a crisis that nearly brought down the global financial system, America’s banks are ruling it. They earned 62% of global investment-banking fees last year, up from 53% in 2011, according to Coalition, an industry data provider. Last year, U.S. banks took home $7 of every $10 in merger fees, $6 of every $10 in stock commissions, and $6 of every $10 paid to hold and move corporate cash.

Europe’s banks are smaller, less profitable and beating a hasty retreat from Wall Street. Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG is firing thousands of investment bankers. Switzerland’s UBS Group AG abandoned its huge trading floor in Stamford, Conn., to refocus on its roots as a private bank.

Barclays is the lone holdout with an ambition to be a universal global bank. Under Chief Executive Jes Staley, an American who rose to prominence at JPMorgan Chase & Co., the bank has resisted shareholder calls to go back to its roots serving British consumers and companies.