Hello everyone, welcome to First BanCorp's first quarter 2023 financial results call. My name is Daisy and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to your host, Ramón Rodriguez, the Corporate Strategy and Investor Relations Officer at First BanCorp to begin. Ramón, please go ahead.
Thank you, Daisy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining First BanCorp's conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial results for the first quarter of 2023. Joining you today from First BanCorp are Aurelio Alemán, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Orlando Berges, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements such as projections of revenue, earnings, and capital structure, as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company's business. The company's actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made due to the important factors described in the company's latest SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call.
If anyone does not already have a copy of the webcast presentation or press release, you can access them at our website at fbbinvestor.com. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Aurelio Alemán.
Thanks, Ramón. Good morning to everyone, thanks for joining our earnings call today. Please turn to page four to go over the highlights for the quarter. Very pleased to say that we begin the year with very encouraging results for our franchise. The resiliency of our business model was evidenced during the quarter as we earned $70.7 million in net income, or $0.39 per share, which translated into a strong return on assets of 1.55%. On a non-GAAP basis, pre-tax pre-provision income was $118 million, up 6% when compared to the same quarter last year, 3% below last quarter, mostly driven by a reduction in net interest income during the quarter. The margin contracted slightly by three basis points, primarily due to higher cost of funds. I have to say that credit metrics remain very stable.
Total loans in early delinquency decreased by 10% during the quarter, and non-performing assets decreased to just 68 basis points of total assets. The provision for credit losses remained relatively flat at $15.5 million. The ACL for loans increased 4 basis points to 2.9%. During the quarter, we decided to take certain prudent actions to further strengthen our liquidity as a precautionary measure, obviously considering the recent volatility in the banking sector. At the end of the quarter, we ended with $4.8 billion in uninsured deposits while having an unused available liquidity of $5.5 billion or 114% of the uninsured portion. In terms of capital deployment, we continue our journey. We purchased $50 million in shares of common stock and increased the common stock dividend by 17% to $0.14 per share.
We opted to pause additional buyback during the second quarter, obviously, you know, given recent market events. We do expect to resume buyback activity in the second half of the year. Just to remind, we still have pending $75 million in authorized buybacks under the 2022 approved plan. We also expect to announce our updated capital plan when we report our second quarter earnings in July. You know, we were expecting to do that this quarter as we announced last time, but we decided it was prudent to move it up just one quarter. As we have said in the past, we continue to aim to return approximately 100% of annual earnings to shareholders during 2023 through buybacks and dividends as part of our capital management program. Please, let's move to the balancing section on page 5.
We registered our 5th consecutive quarter of loan growth, driven by healthy loan origination activity, primarily in Puerto Rico. Consumer loan balances increased by $80 million during the quarter, up 2.4% linked quarter, in line with our loan growth guidance for consumer loans. Even though commercial loan growth in Puerto Rico was up by $92 million or 2.6% linked quarter, the commercial loan book decreased during the quarter by $19 million. It was driven by larger than expected payoffs and pay downs of certain commercial loans in the Florida region of around $108 million. Finally, residential mortgage loans were down $33 million, slightly below our flat growth guidance for 2023. We do remain optimistic about loan growth prospects in our main market, and we reiterate our overall mid-single-digit loan growth guidance for 2023.
I would like to spend some moment discussing the composition of our commercial book. We added some additional information into this slide, particularly our exposure to office real estate in Puerto Rico and the U.S., which has been a key area of focus for the industry in recent months. At the end of the first quarter, we had $2.4 billion or 45% of our commercial portfolio in commercial real estate. Out of this total, $414 million is in the office real estate exposure or 8% of the total commercial book.
We believe credit quality of our CRE book is strong, with just 0.92% of loans non-performing and minimal to no losses recognized over the last years. We believe refinancing risk for office real estate is nominal with just $85 million and $18 million of loans in Puerto Rico and the U.S. respectively, scheduled to mature or reprice over the next two years. We do oversee a well-diversified commercial loan portfolio across the multiple industries and property types, multiple regions with adequate reserve that we believe are sufficient to cover expected losses, and has performed well during multiple business cycles. Please let's move to page six to discuss deposit trends and liquidity.
Core deposit, net of broker and government deposit decreased by $143 million during the quarter, reflecting reduction of $139 million in Florida and $15 million in the Virgin Islands, partially offset by an increase in Puerto Rico region of $11 million. Over 2/3 of the deposit reduction, it actually took place in the first two months of the quarter, it was primarily driven by customers looking for high-yield deposit alternatives in the Florida market, that were traditionally outside of the banking sector. Also some liquidity was used to pay down some commercial loans. On the government deposit side, which are fully collateralized, amounted to $2.7 billion, decreasing by $96 million during the quarter. I have to say that our deposit base remained very stable following the March industry events.
We actually opened more new deposit accounts during March than any of the prior 12 months. Our diversified deposit franchise is comprised of an attractive mix of commercial and retail customers. Deposit over 70% are FDIC insured or are fully collateralized. In addition, the granularity of the deposit base is evidenced by average deposit balances per account. Retail clients of approximately $10,000, an average deposit balance per account for non-government commercial of about $97,000. Obviously, we carry a healthy non-interest bearing ratio, deposit ratio of 38%. Let's cover some highlights for the operating environment in our main markets. Pleased to say that macroeconomic conditions in our main market remain stable. Total non-payroll employment continues to improve. Over 60,000 jobs have been added to the workforce since February 2020, a 6% increase.
The Economic Activity Index continued to trend above pre-pandemic levels. Even though auto sales have decreased somewhat compared to last year, which was a record year, higher real retail sales and government tax collections are evidence for strong consumer sentiment and increased economic activity. The Fiscal Board published a most recent plan on April 3rd. It outlines a recent projection for disbursements of disaster and pandemic relief funding. During the first two months of the year, over $600 million disaster relief funds have been disbursed already. This is an 83% increase when compared to the same period last year. The board is actually projecting over $5 billion in additional disbursements to take place during the year.
We believe these funds will continue to play a key role supporting Puerto Rico economic stability and are very encouraged by the potential impact they will have on the island infrastructure. The franchise continued to perform well. Our omnichannel strategy continued to advance during the quarter. We currently interact with over 55% of our customers through digital and self-service channels, primarily through our digital banking applications. We reached this quarter 400,000 registered users in March, an increase of 3.5% versus prior quarter. We continue to invest in our digital capabilities to continue enhancing the experience of our clients. I will turn the call to Orlando to go over some more details on the financial results. Thanks.
Good morning, everyone. Again, as disclosed this morning, net income for the first quarter was $70.7 million, $0.39 a share. That compares with $73.2 million or $0.40 a share last quarter. Pre-tax, pre-provision for the quarter decreased slightly to $118.1 million, which is 3% lower than last quarter, but it's 6% higher than what we achieved on the same period in 2022. Profitability metrics were strong with 1.55% return on average assets and a 49% efficiency ratio. The provision for credit losses for the quarter was basically flat. However, we did achieve increases of $5 million on the allowance for credit losses.
I will touch upon that a little bit later in the presentation. Net interest income, it's a key component here, decreased $4.7 million during the quarter. Approximately two and a half million of this reduction, it's the impact of two fewer days in the quarter. Overall interest income was higher by $8.9 million, while interest expense grew $13.6 million. On commercial loans, interest income grew $4.8 million, the yield improved 43 basis points. The average portfolio also grew by $58 million for the quarter. In the case of consumer loans, interest income grew $2.1 million, primarily related to $100 million higher average balances for the quarter.
We did achieve 17 basis points improvement in the yield on consumer loans for the quarter. Interest expense on deposits grew $8.8 million, 38 basis points increase. During the quarter, we clearly saw a shift in deposit mix, with time deposits growing $168 million, while non-interest bearing deposits decreased $89 million. The interest expense on retail and commercial time deposit increased $4.8 million for the quarter, the cost went up from 110 basis points last quarter to 187 basis points this quarter. In fact, you know, new originations are being issued at a higher rates.
Uh, the cost of public funds, uh, that we, you know, touched upon that on last quarter and the impact it's having increased, uh, $2.4 million in the quarter. And, and the beta on these public funds, uh, was over 95% in the quarter as compared to the 75% we saw last quarter. Um, however, um, the, the future movement on these deposits obviously will be a function of whatever happen on rates, and they will move up or down pr- much faster than other deposits, uh, as rates move. Uh, on the other hand, uh, when we look at, uh, at the cost of the remaining interest-bearing deposits, they only increased seven basis points, uh, with a beta of just under 11% , uh, for the quarter.
Interest expense for the quarter also reflect the increase in wholesale funding. Expenses increased $4.8 million, mainly in FHLB advances, in part to provide for the additional liquidity that Aurelio mentioned. Margin again decreased 3 basis points in the quarter, as expected to some extent, with some impact related to the additional funding we took. As compared to last quarter, the margin was 434, versus 437 we had at the last quarter of 2022. You know, the impact in margin, it's a lot related to a change in mix of the funding structure. We expect to continue to see the net interest income pressure, in the near term as interest rate rise on deposits, with some normalization later in the year.
As I mentioned on the last call, based on the current balance sheet structure, we expect the net interest income to remain close at current levels with lower yielding assets such as investment portfolio being repaid, being replaced by higher yielding assets. Improvements will come with the future growth on the loan portfolios. On the non-interest income side, we did have a pickup of $2.9 million. We collected $2 million in annual and continuing insurance commissions, and we did have some improvements in fee-based based on the adjustments done last quarter. Expenses for this quarter were $115.3 million, which compares to $112.9 million in the prior quarter, a $2.4 million increase.
This quarter, we were able to achieve a $2 million gain on the disposition of OREO properties, which was higher than we expected. We also received $1 million in annual credit card incentives that happens at the beginning of the year. If we were to exclude these items, expenses for the quarter were $118.4 million, which compares to $115.5 million last quarter. It's basically just under $3 million increase as compared to last quarter. The expense growth includes a $4.2 million increase in payroll expenses, basically related to payroll taxes and bonus accruals as had been anticipated.
It also includes increases on the FDIC insurance costs related to the higher assessment rate that was effective this quarter. We did have some additional increases in some operational reserves. On the other hand, business promotion expenses were lower in the quarter based on the seasonality of marketing efforts. Expenses for the quarter, excluding OREO, were below our $120 million guidance, but we continue to believe that spend trends will be in the $120 million range in the next quarters as we continue to execute on the additional investments we are putting out on our franchise, particularly those related to improvements of the delivery of banking services to customers.
Efficiency ratio remains very low at 49.4%, although slightly higher than the 48% we achieved last quarter. In terms of credit quality, as Aurelio mentioned, credit metrics continue to be very stable. Non-Performing Assets again decreased just slightly by $200,000 to $129 million and represent just 68 basis points of total assets. Reduction in NPAs includes $6.3 million decrease in non-accrual residential mortgage loans, mainly loans that were restored to accrual status in the quarter.
That was partially offset by $4.4 million increase in non-accrual commercial loans, which basically relates to one case, the inflow of one case in the Florida region, a $7.1 million commercial loan participation we have on a loan to a borrower in the power generation industry. Inflows to NPLs increased $5.6 million to $29.7 million, compared to the $24 million in inflows last quarter, again, driven by this case, otherwise, inflows would have been slightly lower. Early delinquency, meaning 30 to 89 days past due loans decreased $10 million, as Aurelio mentioned, and it was across all different portfolios. Net charge-offs for the quarter were $13.3 million, which represent 46 basis points of loans.
Basically the same as last quarter, mostly related to the consumer portfolios. Consumer loan charge-offs were 1.54% of loans in the quarter, which is still lower than pre-pandemic levels. In terms of the allowance for credit losses, ended up at $278 million, which is $5 million higher than last quarter. The allowance on just loans and finance leases was $266 million and same $5 million increase as compared to prior quarter. The increase in the allowance includes the effect of the previously mentioned case in the Florida region that went into NPLs, as well as, you know, we're anticipating some less favorable longer term outlook on several macroeconomic variables which affect the allowance calculations.
Also, this quarter, we did adopt the new accounting standard for TDRs and elected to discontinue the use of the discounted cash flow methodology for restructured accruing loans. That resulted in a $2.1 million increase in the allowance to credit losses for residential mortgage loans. The ratio of the allowance to loans held for investment was 2.29% at the end of the quarter, which compares to 2.25% in the prior quarter, which is a healthy coverage. On the capital front, our regulatory capital ratios continue to be very strong. As you can see on the chart, the changes are very small compared to last quarter, as basically revenues have offset all capital actions that have been executed in the quarter.
The tangible book value per common share increased 8% during the quarter from $6.93 to $7.50, all related, mostly, basically all related to the $87 million improvement in the other comprehensive loss adjustments, as the fair value of the securities increased based on the changes in market rates. Tangible common equity ratio increased to 7.12% compared to 6.81% last quarter. As of March, for your information, the other comprehensive loss adjustments included in capital was $711 million. It came down from about $800 million last quarter. That represents a reduction of about $3.95 in the tangible book value per share and increases the tangible common equity ratio by approximately 336 basis points.
Again, as we have mentioned before, the other comprehensive loss adjustments, affecting these ratios, we will reverse over time. We have the intent and, based on our liquidity position, we have the ability to hold the securities until maturity. In reality, the investment portfolio has not been growing, and our most recent estimates for repayments expect $1.8 billion in repayments in 2023 and 2024, which is over 30% of the portfolio. Another $1.6 billion in 2025, which is an additional 27% of the portfolio. In essence, 57% of the portfolio will pay off over this timeframe. The ratio remains at a 3.6 or so we had mentioned in the last call.
Before we finish, I just wanted to expand briefly on the liquidity discussion Aurelio mentioned before. As he said, in light of the recent banking sector events during the second half of March, we decided to tap on some of our available funding sources to increase our cash position as a precautionary measure. We took an additional $250 million in advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank and increased third-party short-term repos by another $98 million, ending March with approximately $824 million in cash on hand and at the Fed account. We also had available at the end of the month, additional funding sources in the form of $2.4 billion with quality securities that could be pledged.
We have $882 million available for credit at the Federal Home Loan Bank. We had $1.4 billion available in the Fed's discount window. All of this combined with the cash make up the $5.5 billion of available liquidity sources Aurelio mentioned before. We also enrolled on the Fed's short-term funding program, but so far we have not used these funding sources. In general, we feel very comfortable with the level of liquidity that we have and the way the deposit components have behaved over this timeframe. With this, I would like to open the call for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if anyone would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad to register a question. Our first question today is from Timur Braziler from Wells Fargo. Timur, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, everyone.
Good morning. Good morning.
Maybe, just following up on the last line of commentary from Orlando on the liquidity position. I'm just wondering how you're thinking about liquidity going forward, not only in the borrowings that were added, but then also in some of the cash flows from the bond book. I guess, how long are you planning to keep those borrowings on the balance sheet? With some of the planned maturities over the next couple of quarters, what the plan is for those as well?
Yes. There are two uses for the funding. It's one of it's some of it is more longer term, which is based on needs on our Florida market based on what has been the behavior of our customers. The short-term components we took for this was an immediate action just to increase cash. We ended up, as I mentioned with over $800 million in cash in hand at the Fed. Clearly we don't need that much cash to operate. We are tracking deposit behavior throughout April, has been very consistent.
In fact, we have already started to cut down on some of those short-term funding components and get back to normal levels if we don't see any significant variance on behavior like it's been the case on the month of April. In essence, it would be very short term, based on current circumstances. You know, we have the flexibility to move that up or down, fairly fast if needed. That's why we don't think it's necessary just to keep those levels sitting there for a long timeframe.
Okay. On the bond book, it looked like the average balances were higher than the period end. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on the bond book and what your planned actions are on some of those planned maturities coming due over the next couple of quarters.
The bond book is not higher. The movement on the bond book, it's a function of the repricing of the fair value. What happened is that obviously as the market value came up, we had that pickup of $87 million on market value. In reality, the only move that we've had recently on the investment side has been on Federal Home Loan Bank stock that we have to buy. As we take some advances, we do buy some Federal Home Loan Bank stock as which is a requirement.
Other than that, the book came down over $105 million over the course of the quarter in terms of repayments that we have. We do expect that book to continue to come down. As I mentioned, the estimate we had done for it was about $650 million this year for the full 2023. The remainder of what I mentioned before in terms of repayment of 1.8 billion, it would be around $1.2 billion coming in 2024. That's the estimate we have on repayment. We don't have any plans to put anything on the investment portfolio at this point. It would be used for funding, the lending, side.
Okay. Got it. That's good color. Thank you. maybe switching to the deposit side, it's very encouraging to see the stability of the deposit base more broadly in Puerto Rico and kind of the lack of panic that we saw maybe in some of the more localized banks on the mainland. I guess more specifically on the government deposit book in Puerto Rico, it seems like the first quarter should be seasonally stronger, but we did see lower balances for both you and then the smaller competitor that reported earlier. I'm just wondering, was there some flight to the larger bank in the government deposit book? Or I guess, what was the dynamic that drove those balances lower this quarter?
Yeah. No, there's no real flight. It's just, you know, some of these accounts, you know, have a lot of activity in and out. It's a timing issue. We have to say that they are stable. They use some of the liquidity, you know, for either projects, capital investments or, you know, different payments that we process as part of the accounts that we have. You know, money comes back, goes out. You know, on average it's, you know, I would say it's stable. Also keep in mind that there is a large component that comes in on the government side during the month of April, not before that, because of I mean municipal taxes and property taxes and income taxes, they all kick in.
That big movement we normally expect in the second quarter if it's gonna happen, rather than the first quarter. As Aurelio mentioned, a lot of it was related to some of the agency accounts that had movement in the quarter as they normally do up or down.
Great. Thanks. Just lastly from me, just looking at the Florida component of the story, it seems like that's a little bit more under pressure than maybe the Puerto Rico component. We saw a charge-off there. We see incremental deposit pressure. The loan origination activity is slowing down. Can you just maybe talk about Florida in the longer term? Is this kind of the cost of doing business and getting more geographic diversity? You have to kind of take the good times with the bad, or is this enough to kind of make you tap the brakes maybe a little bit more on what you're doing on the mainland?
Well, I think, you know, first of all, our concentration in Florida is really Miami-Dade, Broward County. If you see the economic trends are very, very positive in terms of, you know, inflow of residents and demographics are just, you know, positive trends. When you look at the behavior of the customers, you know, it's different, and I think you can see that in some of the neighbor banks that operate with us. You know, I have to say that we're seeing similar trends across what we consider our peers there. It's a market situation where, you know, some of the money is moving out to treasuries, to really non-bank competitors. We had a niche business with, you know, commercial clients, primarily.
Some of this money was sitting there for a long time, started to move last year. It's moving. It moved. I have to say, you know, the impact actually was prior to the March event, which we saw, and it was really yield-driven. Actually, some of that money was used to... There's a lot more sensitivity in the market to pay what we consider our current market rate for loans, especially on some of the CRE and, you know, the facilities. You know, some customers are just paying down with their own liquidity. There was significant excess liquidity accumulated over this year. I think, you know, we monitor ourselves. You know, it's a cycle. We're moving with it. We're committed to the, to the market.
You know, as you say, you had, you know, really good times there, good asset quality. We feel we have a solid book. You know, obviously margin is compressing differently to what we see in our main market. It's part of the. You know, regional diversification is important and, you know, we expect to sustain on our franchise at the current levels. Yeah.
Great. Thanks for all the questions and nice quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question today is from Kelly Motta from KBW. Kelly, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I think maybe I'll go back to the funding side of things. In your release, you mentioned that new account openings were actually higher in March than they had been in the prior 12 months. I'm just wondering if you could take us back to the month of March, if what you saw there was maybe some proactive, kind of defensive move on your part in the While, like, market uncertainty was going on, or if there was any sort of specials that was irrespective to the March volatility. Just very interested in what drove that.
Okay. You know, when the event happened over that weekend, you know, we prepare ourself with, you know, communication and scripts to answer client questions. You know, we do have a high-end portfolio, a high balances portfolio, that obviously we expected some contraction concerns. You know, some of that happened, but, you know, very limited number of clients move out to other sources because that's specifically, you know, concerns, very limited numbers. You know, on the other hand, you know, we've been building capacity to grow the deposit franchise. We remember, you know, we were very busy last year, Kelly, you know, doing consolidation of branches and things that distract, managing the attrition, managing the vacancies. Some of that is in the past.
We have built the capacity to increase, you know, to our targeted levels of new accounts, new customers coming into the bank. Actually, you know, March was the month that we achieved the highest number of accounts opened, very close to our goal that were based on our capacity plan and the network that we have. Noise, you know, I think we all have to do, you know, the proper education, explain, you know, why the franchise is different to the banks that failed in the U.S. during those during that event. It's a very different profile. You know, we have the granularity, the excess liquidity, the protection of uninsured deposits. You know, I think we were proactive in managing it, and these are the results. Yeah.
Thanks. On the other side of the balance sheet, I think in your prepared remarks, you reiterated kind of mid-single digit loan growth as the outlook. I believe on last quarter's call, you talked about the potential of public-private partnerships being additive towards that. Just wondering if you had an update on how, you know, potential projects like that were trending and if that's contemplated in your loan growth outlook ahead that you updated us with.
Yeah. Yeah. That, that continues to be on top of that. you know, they are, they are, you know, There's a couple of transactions in the market today that I will say most banks in Puerto Rico are looking at them. you know, we believe some of that will be, you know, second half of the year. even though they're taking traction, they're in the process of, you know, obtaining bids and RFPs and, you know, being working in the financial markets, fairly large deals, I have to say. you know, They continue to progress. Yes, you know, as I, as I mentioned before, that will be on top of, of our mid-single digit, you know, target.
Got it. Appreciate that. Maybe last question for me on the capital front. I appreciate the commentary that you'd revisit the buyback in the second half of the year. Obviously, with what's going on in the banking industry, people are looking closer at, you know, capital fully baked for unrealized losses. Just wondering if any of these events is changing the way you view optimized capital levels and how you're managing capital on the balance sheet ahead.
Well, you know, definitely, you know, we decided to pause in this quarter to, you know, reassess, you know, what are the new risks that are in environment, you know, you know, of, you know, what could be, you know, potential changes to, you know, regulatory ratios. We don't know if that. The people have been talking about. We are reassessing all the potential new risks. On the other hand, you know, we do have a lot of capital, and obviously, you know, remain, you know, our goal is to distribute 100% will be basically stay at the same capital level that you are today, as we move on through the year.
You know, there's when events like this happen, you know, it's the most prudent action is to pause, understand the items, you know, redo your stress testing considering, you know, new potential scenarios. We feel, you know, if we are where we are today and these trends continue, you know, on a flat scenario where we are today, you know, things will continue to perform well. You know, we believe that we, you know, we will conclude on that, and we'll inform the market in July. Unless, you know, new things come, that should be the outcome.
Great. Thank you so much for all the color and, congrats on a great quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take our next question, I would just like to remind everyone: to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Alex Twerdahl from Piper Sandler. Alex, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, guys. This is Bader. I'm just filling in for Alex Twerdahl today. I just wanted to touch on loan growth. I know you've mentioned previously. You know, we've seen commercial and construction growth in Puerto Rico and, as you mentioned, unexpected paydowns in Florida. Could you give us more color, maybe by geography or by segment, if we should expect to see more of that in the coming quarters, where we see growth in Puerto Rico more and some declines in Florida or? You know, any color on that would be helpful. Thanks.
You know, first of all, you know, pipelines continue to look healthy, and in both regions and actually in the ACR region also. You know, obviously our guidance on loan growth of mid-single digit, it varies by sector and by region. We calculate the guidance based on the overall portfolio. When we say, you know, consumer 10%, we talk about the overall franchise, you know, independent of regions. When we talk about 5% mid-single digit in commercial, it's across the region. Then, you know, and then, you know, the mortgage, you know, we guided flat. Obviously, where rates were during the quarter, that was a challenge. We still believe, you know, that some of that can be recovered.
You know, by region, I think, you know, Florida is a bit more sensitive to rates, so it's gonna be more difficult to grow in Florida. On the other hand, when we look at the, when we look at the pipeline, you know, the portfolio should be sustained, and we don't expect, you know. It was surprisingly high, the number of paydowns, so hopefully, that doesn't happen going forward because of rates. We do expect more stability. In Puerto Rico, you know, we do have more certainty on the growth because of less, less volatility on the, on the paydown side. I think, you know, we look at it overall, you know, by portfolio, by asset class. We don't necessarily look at it individually by region in terms of how we provide the detail, but that's, you know, what I can share with you.
Got it. One more question. I know you guys said that you expect more pressure on the deposit side. Do you have any update? I know you guys said that you expect cycle to date betas, or expected betas to be 18%-22% or in that range. Does that still stand, or do you know, have an expectation for what you think betas could peak at this cycle?
Well. On the 18 to 22 was the average on all the deposits excluding public funds that during the last quarter. We split it in this quarter in three components basically because of what we have seen in terms of shift to time deposits. That changed a bit the mix of how deposit portfolio its behavior has been happening lately. The non-interest-bearing accounts, excluding the time deposits and the government, was only 11% beta this quarter. That should be, you know, more or less like that. The only thing that's been difficult to predict it's the fact that we saw that large movement into time deposits.
In reality, the time deposit levels came down dramatically, you know, from 2019 to 2022, 2021. With rates being so low, we saw people, you know, as time deposits mature, just keeping the money on their regular transaction accounts. Many of those peoples are starting to go back with higher rates and putting deposits on time deposits. So that the acceleration of betas on the time deposit side has been more difficult to anticipate because of the shift in mix on terms and the kind of funding where is it coming from. Some of it is coming from non-interest bearing, which obviously has a bigger impact, some from other lower yielding non-interest bearing accounts.
Again, the government side, you know, should be in that 90% to 95% range. Time deposits is a different story, and all other accounts should be in that 11% to 12% range that I mentioned.
Got it. That's all for me. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if anyone would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. We have no further questions, I'd like to hand back to Ramón for any closing remarks.
Thanks to everyone for participating in today's call. We will be attending Wells Fargo Financial Services Investor Conference in Chicago on May 16th and look forward to seeing you, a number of you at this event. We greatly appreciate your continued support. At this point, we will end the call. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines and have a lovely day.