Travis Lan
Thank you, Ira. Slide 8 illustrates the quarter's deposit growth and rate trends. Core customer deposits increased $600 million, which enabled the repayment of $700 million of higher-cost brokered balances. This is in addition to the $2 billion of brokered deposits, which matured and were repaid during the fourth quarter.
Noninterest deposit balances increased for the third consecutive quarter and now stand at the highest level since September of 2023. In addition to our strong growth, we continue to successfully reprice deposit costs lower. During the quarter, our average cost of deposits declined by 29 basis points. Our repricing actions have driven a total deposit beta of 53% since the Federal Reserve started reducing the Fed funds target rate in September of 2024.
The quarter's net interest margin improvement was largely the result of our ability to reduce deposit costs and incrementally improve our funding mix.
Slide 10 illustrates the components of the quarter's lending activity. We continue to manage the runoff of certain transactional investor CRE and construction loans, which contributed to a $350 million decline in regulatory CRE during the quarter. As of March 31, 2025, our CRE concentration ratio was 353% versus 362% a quarter ago and 474% at the end of 2023.
We anticipate that CRE originations will begin to pick up, which should slow the pace of runoff throughout the remainder of the year. While the first quarter tends to be seasonally slow, we are pleased with the 9% annualized C&I growth that we achieved. Similarly, we saw strong results within our prime indirect auto lending business. We expect the continued growth in these lending lines will support low single-digit loan growth for the year.
Slide 11 highlights the quarter's net interest income and net interest margin results. Net interest income declined modestly as a result of lower day count during the quarter. We estimate that the lower day count represented an approximate $9 million headwind on the quarter's net interest income. Net interest margin increased for the fourth consecutive quarter, bolstered by the positive deposit composition and cost trends described earlier.
As Ira mentioned, we now expect to be towards the lower end of our 9% to 12% net interest income growth range for 2025. While the interest rate environment remains generally in line with our expectations, lower loan growth and continued lending spread compression represent a modest headwind to our initial forecast.
That said, we continue to expect that net interest margin will increase throughout the year as funding costs decline and the fixed rate asset repricing tailwind helps to mitigate potential asset exposure to lower interest rates.
The next slide illustrates the quarter's stability in adjusted noninterest income. Lower wealth and trust fees reflect a modest slowdown in tax credit advisory revenue. Within Capital Markets, swap activity moderated somewhat while FX and syndication fees, both grew sequentially. We continue to believe that the midpoint of our 6% to 10% guided growth range remains reasonable for 2025.
On Slide 13, you can see that adjusted noninterest expenses of $267 million were 3% lower than the fourth quarter and virtually flat as compared to a year ago. The sequential decline was mainly driven by lower technology, consulting and marketing expense, which were partially offset by the seasonal uptick in payroll taxes. We remain focused on managing future expense growth to ensure that incremental revenue gains generate positive operating leverage and support our profitability improvement over time.
As Ira mentioned, we believe that 2025 expense growth will likely fall to the lower end of our initial guidance range. Slide 14 illustrates our asset quality and reserve trends. Nonaccrual loans decreased modestly during the quarter, accruing past due loans declined to 11 basis points as a pair of CRE loans, which had previously been delinquent for idiosyncratic reasons became current again. There were no new material additions to accruing past due loans during the quarter.
Net loan charge-offs and loan loss provision both declined meaningfully from the fourth quarter, with the provision falling to the lowest level in the last 12 months. Given our current expectations for the credit environment, we anticipate that net charge-offs and provision will continue to compare favorably to 2024 throughout the remainder of the year.
During the quarter, our allowance coverage ratio increased 5 basis points to 1.22% and stands at the highest level of the past five years. We anticipate general stability in our allowance coverage going forward, all else equal.
Turning to Slide 15. Tangible book value increased as a result of retained earnings and a favorable OCI impact associated with our available-for-sale portfolio. Our regulatory capital ratios at March 31, 2025, were generally stable as compared to December 31, 2024. As Ira mentioned, we are extremely well positioned from a capital perspective and have the financial flexibility to support our profitability goals throughout the year.
With that, I will turn the call back to the operator to begin Q&A. Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Frank Schiraldi, Piper Sandler.
Frank Schiraldi
Just the last quarter, I think you guys were talking about, if I'm not mistaken, commercial loan originations coming on in the 7% range. I just wondered if you can maybe talk about how that's progressed, where that is -- where the back book is repricing currently?
Travis Lan
Yeah, Frank, new originations this quarter were slightly lower than the 7% level. I think on average, we were about [680]. I think it's a combination of obviously lower benchmark rates and some compression in spreads. That's pretty consistent with what we're seeing across the industry.
Frank Schiraldi
Okay. And then obviously, you made a lot of progress on the CRE concentration levels over the last 12 months. You're basically at that [350] threshold here I think you talked about maybe the compression or the contraction slowing over this year.
Just curious if you can talk about kind of longer-term target? And where do you think that non -- or when do you think that nonowner occupied CRE balances sort of stabilize here. And within that, just wondered if you can talk about the pickup in growth to offset? If you still think you can get close to that double-digit C&I growth this year?
Ira Robbins
I think let me start with just the C&I, I think we're definitely real positive about what we've seen there and the continued double-digit growth is something that we anticipate to continue throughout the organization. We made a really strong foundation for that over the last few years based on hirings and industries that we've entered into.
So that will definitely help as we think about the moderation of the CRE concentration that sits within the entire organization. I think that said, we are getting generally pretty comfortable with where we are today and some of the significant reductions that we've seen in the CRE portfolio are probably going to begin to stabilize as we begin to see a little bit more uptick in some of the originations on that CRE book.
So over a long period of time, the CRE concentration will definitely come down, but it will be largely more attributable to growth in other areas outside of us really reducing what we're seeing in that CRE portfolio.
Operator
Chris McGratty, KBW.
Christopher McGratty
Travis, on the expense guide, you did great this quarter. To get to the updated guide, it would imply a bit of a ramp. So I'm interested in your thoughts there? Or are you just being conservative at this point? It feels like low end or even a touch below might imply?
Travis Lan
Yeah, I think that's pretty reasonable. I think we've been consistently conservative with respect to our expense to give ourselves the flexibility to invest in revenue-generating opportunities that we identify. I would say this quarter, we would anticipate, obviously, payroll taxes will normalize about $4 million in the second quarter. But I do think that will be offset by higher kind of marketing and business development spend as the year goes on.
And then professional fees were also fairly low this quarter, and we manage that very tightly, but some opportunity there for that to be higher as the year goes on to. So I agree with your general sentiment but those are some of the moving pieces. And all that said, I mean, obviously, expenses remain very well controlled in general and certainly expect further positive operating leverage as the year goes on and further efficiency gains.
Christopher McGratty
Awesome. And then in terms of deposit growth, interested in kind of what your updated thoughts are for the rest of the year and ultimately trying to land at what you're going to do with the bond portfolio and cash those levels.
Travis Lan
Yes, sure. I think, look, we had very strong core customer deposit growth this quarter. I anticipate the momentum there will continue throughout the year. enabling us, I think, first, our focus would be to pay off some amount of brokered, continue that positive trend that we've seen in the last two or three quarters. I think the cash position is in a pretty good place here.
Obviously, some room for -- to put additional funds to work. But again, our priority would be improvement of the brokered deposit portfolio.
And then from a securities perspective, I think still going to grow a couple of [$100 million] a quarter likely. The portfolio is at 12% of the balance sheet today, over time, that trend is higher but the toggle there will be loan growth. So if loan growth doesn't necessarily materialize, then we have more flexibility for the securities portfolio.
Operator
Manan Gosalia, Morgan Stanley.
Manan Gosalia
Ira, you noted that your CRE portfolio is insulated from tariff disruptions. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And also how you're thinking about which industries or which sectors might be under a little bit more stress here?
Ira Robbins
Yeah, definitely. I think having a CRE concentration as we continue to move forward some of the volatility might not be the worst thing in the world. Obviously, it's not a place we want to manage with concentration by any means.
But that said, I think when we think about the asset classes that are going to be impacted, if rates do come down on the long end, that would be a positive for us as we think about where we sit with the criticized assets, where we sit with the reserve coverage ratios, et cetera.
So generally, the commercial clients that we have are more sensitive to interest rates than where they are on tariffs. As we think about building in some of the development that comes into it, the two factors that really impact development on the CRE side are really interest rates and labor and both of those seem to be a little bit more controlled versus where they were before.
So the tariff conversations as we think about steel and some of the other things for the size borrowers that we do and for the projects that they have, really would have less of an impact as other ones. Obviously, there's industries that are going to be potentially more impacted than others based off of what we're seeing with the tariffs and some of the uncertainty.
That said, we feel really strong about what our positions are the equipment leasing business that we have in the industrial space is pretty small. The size of the clients are pretty small as well. So generally speaking, we think we're pretty insulated on an aggregate basis.
Manan Gosalia
Great. That's very helpful. And maybe one for you, Travis. I think you noted spread compression a couple of times. It sounds like you're seeing more competition.
I guess the question there is, where is that coming from? And are you expecting more spread compression in your guide?
Travis Lan
Yeah. So the guide does expect a little bit more spread compression than what we've seen. I think actually, it was fairly benign at the end of 2024, and we've seen some incremental pressure in the first quarter here. So that -- I think you do see competition for high-quality commercial deals in particular.
Something that we're not unfamiliar with, and we do have a variety of levers to pull depending on where the competition is greatest, and we review the opportunity to be.
So whether that's the geographic diversity that we have between the Northeast and the Southeast or some of the nationwide businesses. I mean, Ira mentioned equipment leasing in our health care business as well, fund financing. So we have a variety of levers to pull to make sure that we can continue to grow profitably in a more competitive world.
Manan Gosalia
SP1 Is that from the banks or from private credit?
Travis Lan
On the commercial side, I would say it's more from the banks. On CRE, I think private credit has gotten more active as noted by the transaction we put on last year. There's still demand for CRE assets moving into private credit. But what we're talking about in general, is more on the C&I side.
Operator
Anthony Elian, JPMorgan.
Anthony Elian
You reiterated the loan guide of up 3% to 5%, but you expect the low end now. I'm wondering, Travis, can 2Q actually be a loan growth quarter? Or will most of that growth you expect to be in the back half of the year?
Travis Lan
No, I think the second quarter can absolutely be a loan growth quarter. I mean if you look at what we did this quarter, I think the kind of headwind that we faced was CRE originations were a little bit lighter than what we had anticipated. Payoffs were generally in line. And then the growth we saw in C&I and consumer was in line with our strong expectations.
So I think there's consistency and momentum in those last two areas being C&I and consumer. And then as CRE originations pick up, which we're beginning to see and we've seen an uptick in the pipeline on both the CRE and C&I side, we feel pretty good about growth here in the second and third quarter.
Ira Robbins
Maybe just to give you a little bit more clarity on what that pipeline is, just in the commercial space, when you look at all components of where the pipeline sits, whether it's an approved or preapproved, we were sitting around $2 billion at last quarter end.
Today, we're north of $2.7 billion. Now obviously, we don't pull through all of that, but generally a lot more activity. And the anticipation is to have strong growth as we think about Q2, Q3 and Q4.
Anthony Elian
And then my follow-up for Mark, last quarter, you called out some large loan relationships that drove the increase in fourth quarter commercial real estate and C&I nonperformers. I'm just wondering if you could provide us a little update on those loans?
Mark Seager
Sure. All of those loans have been written down and taken care of and no lingering on any of those fourth quarter issues. The charge-offs this quarter were associated with two C&I credits, predominantly making up the bulk of that portfolio. We are very comfortable with the guidance that we're giving on both provision and charge-offs for the remaining portion of the year.
Operator
Matthew Breese, Stephens Inc.
Matthew Breese
I was hoping you could talk a bit about funding and core deposit growth expectations for the year? I'm also curious what's left on broker deposits to run off?
Ira Robbins
Maybe just let me start. I think just how we think about funding in general, Matt, and it's great to talk about the liability side of the balance sheet, but to talk about it in isolation without what we're doing on the asset side, I think would probably be a little bit of a miss here.
And one of the things we've been having to do across the entire organization is how we think about growth, right? And we've seen organic growth on the loan side around double digits on a year-over-year basis. So obviously, as we grow the loan book between the 3% to 5%, there's a far less demand that's required from deposit originations.
So some of the consistency that we've had in deposit originations will now provide a larger funding base for what we're doing on the loan side. In addition to that, obviously, we spend a lot of time thinking about some of the systems across the organization.
We did a significant core conversion October of '23, which enabled us to put on a very large treasury platform here. That's now up and running. So we think we have the strong foundation and capabilities to continue to grow. The funding side of the book, which will really support more on -- at least a one-for-one basis, what we're doing on the loan side. But I know Travis have a bit more details on that.
Travis Lan
Yeah, for sure. I mean, Matt, coming into the year, our expectation for core customer deposit growth was 6%, this quarter was 5.5% on an annualized basis. So we feel pretty good about being on track with those expectations. We do put in the investor on the page, I think, in Slide 11, the bottom right, illustrates maturing CDs and FHLB borrowings.
We still have a pool of $6 billion of brokered CDs, the majority of which are maturing over the next 12 months and create an opportunity to refinance lower into core customer deposits. And that's benefited the funding cost to the deposit betas so far as rates have come down. and anticipate that, that will continue.
Matthew Breese
Got it. Okay. And then the other one is just on loan yields. The movement this quarter relative to Fed funds, just struck me as quite a bit. So could you maybe help us out with the extent of spread compression?
Because without it, the decline suggest there's just a really significant move lower in fixed or adjustable loan yields and just trying to suss that out.
Travis Lan
Yeah. I think part of the impact for the first quarter on margin and then within that asset yields and deposit costs is the fewer days. So with two fewer days, right, you're accreting less interest income, which has an impact on the way the yield presents itself.
While we've talked about spreads tightening somewhat here, I don't think it's sufficient enough to create a meaningful move in the loan yield this quarter.
Matthew Breese
Got it. Okay. If I could sneak in one more. Do you have the end of period or most recent cost of deposits just to help us out directionally?
Travis Lan
I don't in front of me, Matt, I could follow up. It's -- I don't in front of me.
Operator
Jared Shaw, Barclays.
Jared Shaw
I guess maybe sticking with the yield and cost, as we look at margin moving through the year. Do you still feel that the end of the year we can be at or exceeding the [310] level?
Travis Lan
Yeah. Jared, we absolutely do. And I think that's reiterated in some of the guidance pages that we provided here. I think for the full year, we're looking at a margin today of around [305] give or take. Obviously, that's dragged down by the first quarter at [296].
So by the time we get to the end of the year, we do anticipate [310]. I think the key drivers there, as we've talked about, is continued rotation on the funding side out of brokered into lower-cost core the opportunity potentially reprice deposits again.
And then the fixed rate asset repricing tailwind on the loan side. So those factors kind of coming together is what supports that guidance.
Jared Shaw
Okay. And then on the credit discussion, just the build of the allowance this quarter. Did you -- is that more qualitative overlay that you added to the allowance? Or is that -- did you actually use a more -- a change from the baseline Moody's something? More adverse...
Mark Seager
So predominantly, the direction there, if you saw, again, our CRE portfolio strength C&I increased. We mentioned in the past that our reserve coverage for C&I is higher than for CRE, and that directionally led to the build.
We did keep our outlook from Moody's scenario similar to the prior year. And that's predominantly because all of the Moody's scenarios did take into account the tariff environment and expectations of tariffs going into place. So with that, we continue to keep our weightings the same meaning that we have a higher weighting on downside scenario than upside scenario in our model.
Jared Shaw
Okay. All right. And then just finally, I guess, what's the appetite for any additional CRE loan sales from here? You referenced sort of the strength of private equity or private capital. Is there an opportunity to do any more loan sales? Are you comfortable with sort of normal attrition from here?
Travis Lan
I think we're pretty comfortable with where the portfolio stands today. There's a lot of dialogue and a lot of inbound inquiries given the strength of our portfolio. But the reality is, I think we feel pretty confident about where we stand and about the path forward for us organically.
Ira Robbins
And I think just adding to that, when you look at sort of the guidance we gave on that CRE concentration number, we feel pretty comfortable with operating around that number for a period of time. So we're pretty much right there right now.
And I think similarly, just going back to where the reserve coverage is I think you'll notice we didn't adjust any of the guidance numbers or targets for the reserve for the CRE quarters this year, which means this quarter versus in prior years.
So we pretty much already met what that CECL number looks like for us for the year or where we think that the ACL coverage is. So obviously, we're expecting a lot less of a build as we move into the rest of the year.
Operator
Steve Moss, Raymond James.
Stephen Moss
Maybe just following up on credit here. Just kind of curious where are you're criticized and classifieds as of March 31?
Mark Seager
So as of March, we had a slight increase in migration, but still at a reduced level from what we saw in 2024, and we expect that trend of a modest increase or reduction to go forward into 2025.
We -- during the quarter, we actually got repaid on $160 million of criticized assets. All of those transactions were done at par and paid in full. I think we've mentioned in the past that a primary driver of migration in portfolio had been our treatment of guarantor and how that impact on the risk rating.
So in spite of the elevated level of criticized, we show very strong metrics with an improvement in nonaccrual numbers and at 11 basis points of the 30- to 90-day delinquency being one of the lowest levels that we've had in the 10 years that I've been at the bank anyway, which shows that the portfolio is in a very strong performance standpoint.
Stephen Moss
Okay. And then I guess just given the charge-off guide implies lower charge-offs going forward here. I guess I'm struck by, you continue to have some commercial real estate formation -- nonperforming formation you still have elevated C&I loans, kind of like what gives you comfort just given where NPLs are that still remain at this higher level versus the guidance?
Mark Seager
Yeah. And I think I would point to that early-stage delinquency number as really an important number about the overall performance in the portfolio and the modest decline that we're seeing on nonaccrual side.
In addition, just in general, in the CRE environment, as was mentioned, with the spread, we're seeing much more activity in the market today with more options for real estate owners to sell properties at competitive prices, more refinance options than we saw in 2024.
Ira Robbins
Let me just add to that, I think as Mark said, some of what you're seeing in those criticized and classified numbers were a function of, as Mark alluded to, guarantee as opposed to the underlying conditions of the individual asset.
So some of those do migrate into nonperforming numbers, and there are some of those nonperforming numbers that are current to payment.
Stephen Moss
Okay. Good to hear that, especially on the activity side as well. And then I guess in terms of -- Okay. And just in terms of the C&I charge-offs here for the quarter, just give a little more color as to what type of C&I lanes were charged off?
Mark Seager
Yeah, two unique situations. Both of them, the charge-off amount was almost entirely related to events of fraud in this situation. Unique situations on the two credits not something systemic that we could point to any other softness in the portfolio. So unique to these two opportunities.
Operator
Jon Arfstrom, RBC Capital Markets.
Jon Arfstrom
Ira, can we go back to the pipeline? And can you talk a little bit about how it's changed maybe over the last four or five weeks? And are you seeing any kind of I guess, fading in some of the uncertainty in the pause by borrowers?
Ira Robbins
So no, it hasn't changed. We've obviously had a lot of conversations with our borrowers based on their perspective. And I've listened to a lot of calls over the last couple of days just to hear what other CEOs are seeing from their sentiment as they've talked to their clients.
For us, it's been a pretty significant range. We have almost an equal number of clients that are positive and excited about what the long-term implications are from a tariff perspective versus others that are obviously uncertain based on what's going to happen.
I would say, largely speaking, I'm not quite sure that we're giving enough credit to some of these small and entrepreneurial businesses, the ones that we bank. As to their ability to be resilient towards this actual environment.
I spoke to one this morning. he was talking about his ability to already have total ability to reduce any potential increase based on expense reductions and he had a document on his desk from his team. Earlier in the week and other ones sat there and told me that they just put out their COVID playbook and they're ready to actually move forward.
So I think we're hearing a little bit of uncertainty on an absolute basis. I would say though, for many of our borrowers, they felt like they had to operate in that environment since what we saw with COVID. But we aren't seeing anything from a fundamental perspective that will lead pipelines to really decline at this point. So we'll see whether perspective really comes up different than behavior this time.
Jon Arfstrom
Okay. Fair enough. Anything you guys would call out on noninterest income in terms of the drivers of the outlook? And then just curious how you're feeling about wealth and the outlook for growth there?
Travis Lan
Yeah, Jon, thank you. I think there's a strong outlook for both, particularly when you factor in tax credit advisory revenue that hits that line. First quarter was a little bit softer, but the pipeline for deals there is building and should benefit us in the second and third quarter.
And then on the capital markets side, I mean, FX continues to be a strong growth driver, although in aggregate, it's a relatively small contributor, but still very good trends there. And then as CRE originations pick up, we would expect to see some additional swap activity as well supporting the capital markets line.
So I think there's some good trends there on the deposit service charge side, again, increased the pricing in the middle of last year. full year benefit of that in 2025 will be another supporter of the outlook. So feel good about some of the opportunities and momentum that we have on the fee side.
Operator
Thank you. And I would like to hand the conference back over to Ira Robbins for further remarks.
Ira Robbins
I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to listen to us today, and we look forward to reporting you positive results for next quarter. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
