Paul E. Burdiss
Chief Financial Officer at Zions Bancorporation, National Association
Thank you, Harris, and good evening, everyone. I will begin with a discussion of the components of pre-provision net revenue. Over the three -- over three-quarters of our revenue is from the balance sheet through net interest income.
Slide 7 includes our overview of net interest income and the net interest margin. The chart shows the recent five-quarter trend for both. Net interest income on the bars and the net interest margin in the white boxes were consistent with the prior quarter as the repricing of earning assets nearly kept pace with rising funding costs. Additional detail on changes in the net interest margin is outlined on Slide 8.
On the left-hand side of this page, we've provided a linked-quarter waterfall chart outlining the changes in key components of the net interest margin. The 109 basis point adverse impact associated with deposits, including changes in both rate and volume, was offset by fewer more expensive borrowed funds and the positive impact of loan repricing. Our success in continuing to grow customer deposits contributed to the reduced level of brokered deposits and borrowed funds as we moved through the third quarter. And noninterest-bearing sources of funds continued to serve as a significant contributor to balance sheet profitability.
The right-hand chart on this slide shows the net interest margin comparison to the prior quarter. Higher rates were reflected in earning asset yields, which contributed an additional 157 basis points to the net interest margin. This was more than offset by increased deposit and borrowing costs, which when combined with the increased value of noninterest-bearing funding adversely impacted the net interest margin by 189 basis points. Overall, the net interest margin declined by 31 basis points versus the prior year quarter.
Our outlook for net interest income in the third quarter of 2024 is stable relative to the third quarter of 2023. Risks and opportunities associated with this outlook include realized loan growth, competition for deposits and the path of interest rates across the yield curve.
Moving to non-interest income and revenue on Slide 9. Customer-related non-interest income was $157 million, a decrease of 3% versus the prior year quarter -- I'm sorry, versus the prior quarter due to strong capital market fees in the second quarter. Customer fees were in line with the prior year as the year-over-year decrease in capital markets was offset by improved treasury management swap fee. Our outlook for customer-related non-interest income for the third quarter of 2024 is moderately increasing relative to the third quarter of 2023.
The chart on the right-side of this page includes adjusted revenue, which is the revenue included in adjusted pre-provision net revenue and is used in our efficiency ratio calculation. Adjusted revenue decreased 8% from a year ago and decreased by 3% versus the second quarter due to the factors noted previously and a $13 million gain on the sale of property recognized in the second quarter.
Adjusted non-interest expense, shown in the lighter blue bars on Slide 10, was essentially flat to the prior quarter at $493 million. Reported expenses at $496 million, decreased $12 million due to $13 million in severance expense recognized in the second quarter. Our outlook for adjusted non-interest expense is slightly increasing in the third quarter of 2024 when compared to the third quarter of 2023. This outlook excludes any impact associated with the proposed FDIC special assessment. While we have made headway in our effort to flatten expense growth as seen in the current quarter, we expect the timeline for fully achieving our expense objective to take longer than originally planned.
Highlights and trends in our average loans and deposits over the past year are on Slide 11. On the left side, you can see that average loans were somewhat flat in the current quarter. As loan demand continues to soften, our expectation is that loans will be stable in the third quarter of 2024 when compared to the third quarter of 2023.
Now turning to deposits on the right side of this page, average deposit balances for the third quarter increased 9% while ending balances grew 1% compared to the end of the second quarter. Ending customer deposits, which exclude brokered deposits, grew 5% in the third quarter. We continued to see deposit growth coming from both existing and new customers. The cost of deposits shown in the white boxes increased during the quarter to 192 basis points from 127 basis points in the prior quarter. As measured against the fourth quarter of 2021, the repricing beta on total deposits based on average deposit rates in the third quarter was 36% and the repricing beta for interest-bearing deposits was 57%.
Slide 12 includes a more comprehensive view of funding sources and total funding cost trend. The left-hand chart includes ending balance trends. Short-term borrowings have decreased $8 billion since the first quarter of 2023 as customer deposits have grown and earning assets have declined. On the right-hand side, average balances for our key funding categories are shown along with the total cost of funding. As seen on this chart, the rate of increase in total funding costs at 22 basis points in the current quarter has notably declined from the first and second quarters.
Slide 13 shows noninterest-bearing demand deposit volume trends. Although demand deposit volumes have been declining as more customers move into interest-bearing alternative, the contribution to the net interest margin and therefore, the value of the demand deposit portfolio continues to increase.
Moving to Slide 14. Our investment portfolio exists primarily to be ready storehouse of funds to absorb customer-driven balance sheet changes. On this slide, we show our securities and money market investment portfolios over the last five quarters. The investment portfolio continued to behave as expected. Principal and prepayment related cash flows were over $800 million in the third quarter. With this somewhat predictable portfolio of cash flow, we anticipate that money market and investment securities balances combined will continue to decline over the near term, which will be a source of funds for the balance sheet.
The duration of the investment portfolio, which is a measure of price sensitivity to changes in interest rates, is slightly shorter compared to prior year period estimated at 3.5% currently versus 3.9% one year ago. This duration helps to manage the inherent interest rate risk mismatch between loans and deposits. With the larger deposit portfolio assumed to have a longer duration than our loan portfolio, fixed-rate term investments are required to bring balance to asset and liability durations.
Slide 15 provides information about our interest rate sensitivity. A comparison of our modeled depositor behavior to recently observed depositor behavior suggests shortened deposit durations. This change in assumption reduces modeled asset sensitivity, which we are showing on this page with the bars labeled adjusted deposit assumptions. In light of this change, we are actively managing our asset duration to the emerging liability duration.
During the third quarter, we added an additional $1 billion of pay-fixed interest rate swaps. As a reminder, the $3.5 billion of portfolio level pay-fixed swaps on our books served to hedge the value of our investment portfolio designated as available-for-sale in a rising rate environment.
On the right-hand side of this slide, we've included detail on the impact current and implied rates are expected to have on net interest income. As a reminder, we have been using the terms latent interest rate sensitivity and emergent interest rate sensitivity to describe the effects on net interest income of rate changes that have occurred, but have not yet fully been reflected in the repricing of our financial instruments, as well as those expected to occur as implied by the shape of the yield curve. Importantly, earning assets are assumed to remain unchanged in size or composition in these descriptions. These estimates utilize the adjusted deposit assumptions described earlier.
Regarding latent sensitivity, the in-place yield curve as of September 30th will work through our net interest income over time. Assuming a funding cost beta based on recent history, we would expect net interest income to decline approximately 2% in the third quarter of 2024 when compared to the third quarter of 2023. Regarding emergent sensitivity, if the September 30, 2023 forward path of interest rates materializes, the emergent sensitivity measure is estimated to be immaterial in the third quarter of '24 when compared to the third quarter of 2023.
As noted previously, our outlook for net interest income for the third quarter of 2024 relative to the third quarter of 2023 is stable as we expect balance sheet composition changes to be accretive to net interest income.
Moving to Slide 16. Credit quality remained strong. Classified loan levels remaining stable and low. Non-performing assets increased $64 million due primarily to two suburban office loans in the Southern California market, which added $46 million, and one C&I loan, which we expect to sell in the fourth quarter. Net charge-offs were 10 basis points of loans for the quarter. Loan losses in the quarter were associated with borrowers that have struggled with idiosyncratic supply chain issues, $3 million in losses on two office loans and other small losses distributed throughout the portfolio.
The allowance for credit losses is 1.30% of loans, a 5 basis point increase over the prior quarter due largely to increases in reserves for the CRE office portfolio. As we know this is a topic of interest, we have included information regarding the commercial real estate portfolio with additional detail included in the appendix of this presentation.
Slide 17 is a reminder of the discipline we have maintained over the last decade as it relates to commercial real estate in the context of credit concentration risk management. Our growth has remained well below peers over this time.
Slide 18 provides an overview of the CRE portfolio. CRE represents 23% of our loan portfolio, with office representing 16% of total CRE or 4% of total loan balances. Credit quality measures for the total CRE portfolio remained relatively strong, though non-performing assets increased in the quarter to 2.3% of the office portfolio. As mentioned, we recognized $3 million in losses on two office loans in the quarter across the CRE office portfolio. Overall, we continue to expect the CRE portfolio to perform well with limited losses based on the current economic outlook.
Our loss absorbing capital position is shown on Slide 19. The CET1 ratio continued to grow in the third quarter to 10.2%. This when combined with the allowance for credit losses compares well to our risk profile as reflected in the low level of ongoing loan net charge-offs. As the macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, we would not expect share repurchases in the fourth quarter. We expect to maintain strong levels of regulatory capital, while managing to a below-average risk profile.
Slide 20 summarizes the financial outlook provided over the course of this presentation. As a reminder, this outlook represents our best current estimate for the financial performance in the third quarter of 2024 as compared to the actual results reported in the third quarter of 2023. The quarters in between are subject to seasonality.