Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to First Guaranty Bancshares 2023 Annual Shareholders Meeting. This year's meeting is being recorded. We will upload to the investor relations page for anyone who cannot be here today. Please start the recording.
This meeting is being recorded.
I'm Kristin Williams, executive assistant at First Guaranty Bank, and I have the honor of kicking off today's meeting. For the third year in a row, we are hosting a hybrid meeting. Some shareholders will join us virtually and others in person, and all participants will have the ability to hear and see our presentation. For those attending virtually, if you need help at any time during this meeting, please call 813-308-9980 and enter access code 675813. I suggest everyone take a moment to write down this information as we will not revisit it again during the presentation. If you've already mailed in your proxies, there is no need to take any action at this time. However, if you have not, and you are attending this session virtually, I encourage you to send it in now.
You may send those proxy ballots over to First Guaranty via fax at 985-345-0537, or email a scanned copy to investorrelations@fgb.net. Please do so within the next five minutes. For those of you here in person, you will have the opportunity to submit your proxy later in this meeting. Our standard disclosures regarding forward-looking statements are on slides four and five. At this time, I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Marshall Reynolds, Chairman of the Board.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Marshall Reynolds, Chairman of the Board. On behalf of the directors, officers, and staff of First Guaranty Bank, I would like to welcome everyone here this afternoon to the 2023 Annual Shareholders Meeting of First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. At this time, I'd like to introduce Tony Bohner, one of our First Guaranty Bank directors representing Pontotoc, who will lead us in invocation to begin our meeting today. Will you please stand?
Please bow your head. Almighty God, our Father, we praise and thank you for this day. You have given us another opportunity to appreciate life and to fulfill our mission as your instruments of peace and progress. Father, bless all our endeavors, especially today's meeting. Enlighten our minds in every decision we make. Guide us in our discussions, for it is in your name that we pray. Amen.
Thank you, Mr. Berger. You know, in reflecting back over this year, it's hard to think about anything other than where the stock is today. That's sort of a sum and substance of what's important. I wanted to share with you that, you know, during COVID, our stock experienced the same thing and came back. We look like we're gonna get a chance to do an encore of that, I think we will do an encore of that. You know, the first quarter, we had a pretty skinny quarter, we had 2 unusual items that we got rid of the first quarter. As this interest rate squeeze, you know, you can see the second quarter is gonna be better, the third quarter is gonna be even better, and the fourth quarter much better.
We're gonna have a good year this year. This is gonna be a good year, and that's what we look forward to is year-over-year. First Guaranty is gonna be in good shape, and this is the people here that's gonna make it in good shape. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Reynolds. At this point, we will proceed with the 2023 Annual Shareholders Meeting of First Guaranty Bancshares, Incorporated. For those who do not know, my name is Alton Lewis, and I am the president and CEO of First Guaranty Bancshares and Bank. At this time, I have several individuals to introduce as they will be taking an important part in this procedure. First, the representatives from the accounting firm of Griffith, DeLaney, Hillman & Lett ,CPAs, P.S.C., Jonathan Lett.
Where did he go?
There he is. Thank you, Jonathan. This is the first year that Mr. Lett has been here as our outside auditor and is observing these proceedings. You'll see sitting next to him, Sam Lowen, who was our prior outside auditor and who has abandoned us. Anyways, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Amanda Wood Barnett.
Amanda has been a great addition to First Guaranty Bank, First Guaranty Bancshares, because we now have competent legal opinions about what we should do instead of just what I think. She's made a big difference. The Recording Secretary to the Board, Vanessa Drew. In case y'all don't know, Vanessa is now a member of the board of directors of First Guaranty Bancshares also. Thank you. The members and nominees of First Guaranty Bancshares Board of Directors for the coming year are as follows. Please stand, each of you as I name you. Marshall T. Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds is Chairman of the Board of First Guaranty Bancshares, Incorporated and First Guaranty Bank. He is also the chairman of Champion Industries Incorporated, as well as chairman of various other institutions. He has been a board member of the bank since 1993.
William K. Hood. Mr. Hood serves as chairman of the Audit Committee, the Directors Loan Committee, the Compliance Review Committee, and the Marketing Committee of the bank. He is the president of Bill Hood Automotive Group. He is the longest-serving director, having been on the board of directors since 1977. Alton Lewis. Since October of 2009, I have been the vice chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the holding company and the bank. In 2013, January, I was elected as CEO and president. I was an attorney at law and a former partner in the law firm of Cashe, Lewis, Coudrain & Sandage. I was elected to the bank in 2002. Jack Rossi, who is not here. Mr.
Rossi is a holding company board member since February 2018 and a bank board member since March 2018. Mr. Rossi is a certified public accountant in West Virginia and Virginia with over 40 years of public accounting experience. Mr. Rossi is the Executive Vice President of Business Development at Summit Community Bank in West Virginia. He was a partner with the West Virginia accounting firm of Arnett and Foster, where he managed their financial institutions practice until his retirement from the firm in 2013. Mr. Rossi is a past president of the West Virginia Society of CPAs and has served as a member of the West Virginia Board of Accountancy. A highly qualified board member. Mr. Edgar R. Smith III. Ed, thank you.
Smith was appointed to the company's board of directors in October of 2014 and has been a member of the bank's board of directors since February of 2007. Mr. Smith is Chairman and CEO of Speedy Supply Incorporated, Chairman and President and CEO of Latch Oil, Inc., and Chairman of CAM2 International, LLC, and President of Big Four Trucking and Big Four Investments, Jackson Energy and X-Ray Systems. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Vanessa R. Drew. Ms. Drew is an Assistant Vice President and Administrative Officer with over 40 years of banking experience at First Guaranty Bank. She is the recording secretary to the board of directors of First Guaranty Bancshares, Incorporated, as well as First Guaranty Bank, the Audit Committee, investment committee, and the annual shareholder meeting. Ms. Drew is the chairwoman of the contributions committee.
She handles shareholder services and the transfer agent desk. A notary public for the state of Louisiana since 1990, Ms. Drew attended Southeastern Louisiana University and was a past member of the American Business Women's Association. The board of directors of First Guaranty Bancshares, acting for the holding company as the sole shareholder of First Guaranty Bank, intends to vote 100% of the bank shares to reelect all of the current directors of First Guaranty Bank to serve for the 2023/2024 terms. The members of the board of directors of First Guaranty Bank are Mr. Anthony Bohner. Mr. Bohner, thank you. Gloria Ann Dykes. There she is. Ms. Dykes is the owner of Dykes Beef Farm and part owner of Dykes Feed and Fertilizer in Montpelier, Louisiana, and Bluff Creek Properties and Washington Parish Properties. Ms.
Dykes was elected to the bank board in July of 2011. 12 years. It's amazing. Dr. Phillip E. Fincher. Dr. Fincher is not here today. He's a retired economics professor at Louisiana Tech University. He's the Vice President of the board of Claiborne Electric Cooperative since 2004, Vice President of the 1803 Electrical Cooperative Board since 2019, and the owner of CV Ranch since 1969. Dr. Fincher was elected to the board in March of 2008 and serves on the North Louisiana Advisory Board. Dr. Fincher holds a PhD from the University of Mississippi, just so you'd be properly impressed. Robert H. Gabriel. Mr. Gabriel is the President of Gabriel Building Supply Company, Ponchatoula, and a meet. He was elected in August of 2007 to the board and is a former director of Ponchatoula Homestead Bank.
Andrew Gasaway Jr. Mr. Gasaway is President of Gasaway Gasaway Bankston Architects. He also serves as Secretary to the Board of Directors of First Guaranty Bank. He's been on the board since 1978. Mr. Hood was previously introduced. Edwin L. Hoover Jr. He's here. Mr. Hoover is a board member since 1994. He's the President of Encore Development Corporation, with over 30 years of professional experience as a real estate investor and developer and business owner. His various real estate investments include warehousing, shopping centers, and office buildings. Alton B. Lewis. Bruce Mclnnis. Mr. Mclnnis joined the bank's board of director in June of 2017 with the acquisition of Synergy Bank, where he served as chairman of the board. Mr. McIna is a registered pharmacist and independent pharmacy owner residing in Austin, Texas.
He currently serves as the founder and director of RxPreferred Benefits in Nashville, Tennessee, and is director of Best Value Pharmacies in Fort Worth, Texas. He was also a founder of Paragon Healthcare in Dallas, Texas. Morgan S. Nalty. Mr. Nalty is not here today. He's an investment banking executive and partner in the firm of Johnson Rice & Company, LLC. Mr. Nalty joined the board of directors in 2001. Jack M. Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds is a board member since January of 2018. He is a native of Huntington, West Virginia, and currently serves on the boards of Energy Services of America, the Harrah & Reynolds Corporation, and other business interests that include Trifecta Productions, Pritchard Electric, and ADG Corporation. Marshall T. Reynolds, previously introduced. Nancy C. Ribas. Ms. Ribas is the owner of Ribas Holdings, LLC.
She was elected to the bank's board of directors in July of 2011. She's a former director of the Bank of Greensburg. Jack Rossi, who was previously introduced. Richard W. Sitman. Mr. Sitman was elected to the board in July of 2011 and is a former director of the Bank of Greensburg. He serves on the board of directors of Dixie Electric Membership Corporation. He's the board president of Dixie Business Development Center and is on the board of the Association of Louisiana Electric Co-ops. Ann A. Smith. Ms. Smith is a board member since June of 2010. She is a member of the Southern University Board of Supervisors. She's a Southern University chairwoman emeritus. She is a former member of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance Advisory Board and the Tangipahoa Parish School Board. A retired educator, Ms.
Smith served as principal, assistant principal, coach, and teacher at Kentwood High Magnet School. She is an inaugural committee member of the Anderson Ray Leto Memorial Fund. I have to throw in, she was also the coach of a couple of different state championships at Kentwood, right?
Yeah.
Track and basketball, right? Thank you. Edgar R. Smith III, who was previously introduced. We also have the North Louisiana Advisory Board, which is comprised of Dr. Phillip Fincher, who was previously introduced, Thomas Dale Crump Jr, John Davidson Gladney, Terrell Gilmer Dalve III, and Brittain Lamar Sentell. The proxies for our meeting today are Marshall T. Reynolds, who you previously met, and Eric J. Dosch, who is our Chief Financial Officer and has ignored me. The election inspectors or inspectors of election, excuse me, for today's meeting are Kristin Williams, who you previously met, she is the Chairperson, Diane Lanier, Landa Domangue, and Katherine Campbell. Thank you. Now the meeting begins after all that. At the inspectors election table, the following materials are made available for review.
Number one is a list of shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 20th, 2023. That was the record date. An affidavit showing proof of notice of meeting and proxy statement and form of proxy, which have been given to every stockholder of record as of March 20th, 2023. The Inspector of Elections of Office and the Quorum Certificate of Inspectors of Election. The Inspectors of Election have informed me that a quorum is present either by proxy or in person. Such certificate is available for review at the inspectors election table. There are 4 proposals on the ballot for today. 1 is select the board of directors to serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders and until their successors are duly elected and qualified. They are William K. Hood, Alton Lewis, Marshall Reynolds, Jack Rossi, Edgar R. Smith III, and Vanessa R. Drew.
Number two , to approve an advisory non-binding re-resolution regarding our executive compensation as described in the proxy statement. Number three, to ratify the appointment of Griffith, DeLaney, Hillman & Lett CPAs P.S.C. as First Guaranty's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31st, 2023. Number four, to transact such other business as may properly come before the meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Since there are no other nominations in accordance with the holding company's bylaws, the nominations are closed. The polls are now open. Are there any votes to be cast either by proxy or by ballot? If so, inspectors of election, would you please collect the ballots? Inspectors of election, I declare the polls closed. Would you please count the votes and return with the election results?
Do I hear a motion to dispense with the reading of the minutes from the 2022 annual shareholders meeting? Motion by Mr. Smith. Second by Mr. Gabriel. Any opposition? Am I in trouble? Okay. At this time, they let me just talk. Okay? Basically, in the year since we were last here, First Guaranty Bank has made tremendous progress. It's amazing. All the reasons we've had that we've made such progress relate to our shareholders, our board of directors, and our employees. We have an incredible group of people at First Guaranty Bank and First Guaranty Bancshares, and I'm proud to be associated with them.
Yesterday, we were walking over here, I think, for practice, one of our employees said to me, just, you know, as we were walking across, "You know, I think you're the most humble man I've ever met." I said, "Well, I got nothing to be proud of." I thought, "No, I do. I'm proud to be associated with all of y'all." I mean that. Our mantra, our theme is to make First Guaranty Bank a little better every day. Doesn't have to be skyrockets, doesn't have to be anything, just every day, make things better. If you look back over the past year, you see the people that we have added. We already had great people, but the people we have added have really taken First Guaranty to a higher level.
Our performance in loans, our performance in, excuse me, deposits, our performance in obeying the rules, meeting the regulations, has all steadily increased. As a result, First Guaranty Bank is stronger-.
I apologize. I do just want to cut you off for one moment. The screen sharing did end suddenly. If you don't mind, Carl, if you don't mind, you may wish to disconnect and then reconnect. We have lost audio and vision. Please bear with us, everyone. I thank you so much for your patience. As you know, with any technology, it's a blessing and a curse, right? We, the bank did just disconnect. They are going to relaunch into the virtual meeting, and we will continue right where you left off. I thank you so much for your patience.
The recording has stopped.
All right, folks. The, we are getting logged back in.
We're just waiting for audio to reconnect and the presentation to go back on, we are gonna continue right where it got left off. I thank you again for your patience, we're almost there. Sit tight.
This meeting is being recorded.
I do apologize, Carl. We don't have any audio connected for you, so I am seeing the video, but the audio did not reconnect when you had rejoined the meeting. If you don't mind to pause the video and connect audio.
The recording has stopped.
Hello, everyone. I apologize. It does seem that there's a bit of an IT issue, or a technical issue, I mean. I apologize for that, but we are working really hard on it to get this resolved. I just wanna ask you to continue to bear with us. Thank you again for your patience and grace and understanding. We are getting that audio back up and the presentation back up, and we are gonna do that just as fast as we can. Thank you.
This meeting is being recorded. The recording has stopped.
I still cannot hear.
We are working on reconnecting the audio with the bank. I apologize. It does appear that it's not quite up and running just yet, but I know they're actively and urgently working on it. Thank you so much.
You know, I mentioned the new IT leadership. I don't know if Kobe's here or Billy. I think they were traveling, really some significant improvements to protect our company. Of course, we're working with vendors to cut costs wherever we can. Our treasury team, led by Don Schmardo.
This meeting is being recorded.
That's all of our wires, services. They've seen our wire volume double over the last five years. That's a proxy for all the new customers that are doing business with us. They send out a report every month on the hundreds of wires that are done, you know, every month there. Very proud of all the work they do. You know, we continue to train our staff constantly. We have a learning development department that travels all around our footprint. They're always on the road. Very grateful for what they do. We cover training for the Graduate School of Banking. I think we have several people going to LSU next week. We also cover licenses like the CPA license or the CFA designation, a wide variety of other advanced training.
That's the internal investments to improve what we call operating efficiency and operating leverage in our banks so they'll make us more profitable and efficient over time. You know, as we look past over the last year, you know, our bank and our balance sheet, we've proven resilient even though we've been through the most significant increase in interest rates in 40 years. We are aware of the recent headlines in the banking industry, but we've been increasing our deposits, and you're gonna hear from Mark Ducoing in a few minutes, and our liquidity. You know, we continue to reprice our assets higher, our capital has grown, we continue to grow our loan portfolio. Most importantly, as a community bank, we stand ready to do what we do. We're gonna lend in our community.
We're not pulling back like the big banks because that's really what makes a community bank a community bank. I'm, you know, very optimistic about our future. We believe in our efforts on making First Guaranty stronger and better every day and improve our earnings over time. We're gonna continue with this positive momentum. Now I'm gonna give the floor to Randy Vicknair, our Chief Lending Officer.
Thank you, Eric. Our focus in lending continues to be on identifying and securing quality loans for the bank. You'll see some statistics up here, but I just wanna tell you a few things that we have going on throughout our lending efforts. To aid in this effort, we are recruiting new lenders to provide better penetration to existing market areas such as Lafayette, Monroe, Saint Tammany, and the Dallas-Fort Worth markets. We are revising our product offerings to increase diversification of loans within the commercial real estate portfolio and expansion of other loan types such as commercial and industrial loans. We are expanding our mortgage efforts to include the addition of a Texas mortgage manager, as well as additional mortgage loan officers in both Louisiana and Texas.
We continue to revise our lending goals so that our primary focus remains on quality loans, but with secondary objectives of securing low or no interest deposits, SBA, USDA, and now Louisiana Economic Development loans, all of which assist in maintaining a strong pipeline of loan opportunities for the bank. As a testament to our efforts, the lending team has successfully contributed an average of over $50 million in low or no interest deposits over the last three years. As rates have increased, it has made the math more challenging for the larger loans. However, we continue to work with our customers to inject additional equity and have lower loan-to-value so we can facilitate new loan opportunities. Also, there has been a significant increase in small business loan opportunities of $5 million and lower.
This not only provides a steady source of new loans, but these loans are community bank loans that build a solid foundation for our bank, while large loans are great because they move the needle up when you close them. When they pay off, they do the exact same thing in the opposite direction. It's not what a community bank is built on. We continue to make great progress on our mission and add solid new team members. Our Mideast team has now exceeded $250 million in loans. Our Texas team has exceeded $345 million in loans. Our mortgage team had a record year in 2022. The entire bank's contributions led to over 16% loan growth, 22% increase in loan interest income, and strong and increasing loan yields.
As you can see, we didn't have enough accolades, so we had to go out and get another one for the year. For 2023, I'm very excited to announce that First Guaranty Bank was named USDA's Lender of the Year in Louisiana. Another great accomplishment by the team and wonderful accomplishments which we will continue to build on in 2023. As important as these items are to the bank, credit quality remains the utmost importance, and we do not sacrifice it to achieve these results. Therefore, I'll turn it over to Matt Wise, our Chief Credit Officer, to explain more about the improvements in our credit process.
Thanks, Randy. To follow up on Randy's comments concerning our success in 2022, our credit team had an extremely busy year in 2022 supporting our lending team. We underwrote 1,211 commercial loans, just commercial, not including consumer, for a total value of $2.5 billion. Again, not including any consumer loans, $1.6 billion of these loans proceeded to closing. We successfully implemented CECL, or the Current Expected Credit Losses methodology, which improved our allowance for credit losses to $31.6 million or 1.23% of total loans. We continue to closely monitor our commercial real estate portfolio. We are commencing our annual stress testing of this portfolio.
We stress this portfolio via cash flow decreases to EBITDA or NOI, interest rate increases for the variable rate loans, and collateral valuation decreases and their effect on the loan-to-value for our real estate collateral. We also segment our CRE portfolio by location to manage location and economic risks, local economic risks. Our risk-based pricing platform has helped us navigate proper pricing given the FOMC's dramatic pricing increases. This has been challenging given the Fed's 500 basis point increase in the Fed funds rate since Q1 of last year. The model helps us price to a risk-adjusted rate of return based upon asset class and a forward-looking pricing curve. This helps ensure our shareholders are properly compensated for our loan portfolio during this challenging economic environment. Of course, our most important resource is our personnel.
They provide the knowledge and expertise to allow us to effectively identify and mitigate risks within our loan portfolio. To further expand our training and recruiting resources for our personnel, we have recently partnered with the Commercial Banking Initiative, the academic program in the finance department at LSU. This partnership will allow us to further our training, research, and recruiting resources in coordination with the finance department at LSU. Now I will be followed by Evan Singer, the Chief of Mergers and Acquisitions, with more details around his team's accomplishments in special assets.
Thank you, Matt. Last year, I said the strong 2021 numbers that you saw were the result of constant small improvements and hard work on a daily basis. 2022 was no different. We continued our strategy of resolving past due loans as fast as possible. Our non-performing assets reduced by 24% last year, and the Texas ratio reduced by 32%. These efforts are made possible by the special assets department executing multiple plans and strategies at once. The first is to maximize collection time by automating administrative tasks. The second is judgment aggregation and tracking process to compile judgments and pursue garnishments and asset seizures as soon as possible. To proactively identify problem loans in early stages and resolve them as quickly as possible. Most importantly, a win-win approach to deal workouts.
The first quarter of 2022, you'll see that in action. We have proactively identified credits to strengthen so that we'll move into the future stronger. Last year, I said that our team's dedication, you'll see further reductions in our past due loans from our then record levels. We delivered on that promise. I'm making that again here today. Last year, we began due diligence and negotiations to acquire Lone Star Bank, a $150 million bank located throughout Houston, in an all-stock deal at 1.5 times their net tangible book value. We will enter into the Houston market with our existing product and service infrastructure, partnering with their market knowledge base. We'll begin to develop that market with the same success we've brought to all of our markets.
We continue to look at accretive deals all over the Southeast and believe that 2023 will be an incredible year for more opportunity that we are prepared to take advantage of. I'll now give the floor over to our Chief Deposit Officer, Mark Ducoing.
Thank you, Evan. Strong and stable are two words that really best describe our deposit portfolio at First Guaranty Bank. Our associates work each day to provide outstanding service to our customers to ensure customer satisfaction and drive customer retention.
Strong means that our deposit base is expanding as we capitalize on our outstanding customer service levels. We grew total average deposits by 4.9% for the year 2022, and have grown an additional 5.1% through the first quarter of 2023. We have growth in all of our business segments, consumer deposits, commercial deposits, and public fund deposits. We also have growth in all of our geographic markets, with our new Mideast market leading the way. Our new branch in Vanceburg, Kentucky opened on January 18th of this year and is already exceeding deposit expectations. Our branch in Bridgeport, West Virginia, is due to open in the third quarter and will further accelerate our deposit growth for 2023. Overall, the Mideast market now has just under $30 million in deposits and about 600 new deposit accounts.
We've also seen growth in our Texas market with over 10% growth year to date. This will be an excellent source of new deposits as we continue to expand our presence in this large expanding market. Stable means that our customers have confidence in the strength of First Guaranty Bank. Our average consumer customer with a checking or a savings account has banked with us for an average of 11.9 years. We are a community bank strongly focused on relationships that we have with our customers. Our customers know they can count on their banker to do what is right for them every day to help them achieve their financial goals. We are also proud to serve the financial needs of over 100 different public entities across all of our markets.
Our top 10 public funds customers have banked with us for an average of 25 and a half years. We work each day to ensure their deposits are either fully FDIC insured through one of our reciprocal deposit programs, or properly pledged in accordance with applicable state regulations. We are experts in the placement of deposits into the reciprocal deposit programs to offer 100% FDIC coverage to consumer and businesses as well as our public funds customers. Overall, our level of uninsured deposits, a number that has grown in popularity in terms of discussion, is approximately 12.5% of our total deposits when you factor in the expanded FDIC coverage we are able to offer to our customers. This is a far different situation than the circumstances surrounding some of the recently highly publicized bank issues you've heard of.
We are also focusing on expanding our new products and services to help continue to support our deposit growth. I will now turn it over to Desiree to discuss projects underway to continue greater customer service for our customers.
Thank you, Mark. Okay, let's see if my voice holds out because it's kind of going in and out. Just bear with me as I get through this. Last year, I talked to you all about some enhancements that we put into our online banking channel. I also talked to you about a new marketing automation system that we implemented. This year, I only find it appropriate that I actually tell you some of the results that we are starting to recognize with some of those services and also the marketing automation program that we use. In October of 2021, we rolled out a product called Credit Aware, powered by SavvyMoney.
This is a product that lies within our online banking channel where a customer can go and they can see their credit score. They can see their credit report as well, and it gives us the opportunity to also offer them additional products like a credit card, a consumer loan, and we can show them how much interest that they can save if they enroll in one of our cards or our loans. Within the first year, and without any marketing, I'm not even gonna take credit for this implementation or adoption. Within the first year of rolling that out, First Guaranty Bank received a Savvy Award as a top-performing bank for being the highest adoption in this product. We had a 34% adoption rate within the first year.
We've recently did some social media engagement on this, and we did like a reel, which is kind of like a video to promote this product, where we had just over 1,000 impressions and 11% engagement. As of May 13th, we actually have 5,800 users using this, which is gold to us because it also gives us a lot of information and data on our existing customer base. Additionally, we rolled out Autobooks in September of 2022. This is a product that is invoicing and payment acceptance by small and micro businesses. What we did is we actually sent about 4,400 mailers to our existing small and micro commercial customers, and we received an 11% response rate with 479 new enrollments.
This is stats that we were not able to be able to track before that we can track now, and it hasn't even been a year yet. As we keep going, I'm looking for these numbers to only increase. The marketing department was given the task of increasing outstanding balances on the credit cards. What we did is we actually mailed about 1,700 mailers to existing cardholders to try to get them to utilize their card more. What we recognized was a 13% response rate and an additional $590,000 added to those existing balances. Hopefully, we can continue to see that increase as well. Lastly, retail onboarding. We started that in July of 2022. Again, we have not had an entire year with this yet.
What this is an automatic trigger every month for new customers who come into the bank. They actually get a letter sent to them based on their previous behavior or transaction within the bank. We reached 2,800 households. That equates to 16,000 letters mailed. We have a 7% response rate, 37.5% ROI, which equates to 342 new deposit accounts equaling $5.3 million, and 158 loans equaling $4.1 million. This is still not even a full year's worth of tracking metrics. As you can see, so far it's working. To even be able to see this type of data and see what our spend is doing is really important so that you guys can continue to give us more money to spend. What's on the horizon?
We are actually going to do commercial onboarding, which is where we trigger those letters to our commercial team. We actually just started that, I don't have viable data to give you yet. We're going to start reboarding. Reboarding is actually a cross-sell initiative where we look to get more wallet share within our own customer base. We will start to target customers who have been with us for two or more years and have two or less products with us. The hope is that we actually get them up to having 4 products with us. I look forward to being able to bring the, track the spend, track the, I guess hopefully the success to senior management and to Board. Thank you. I give the floor back to Alton.
Well, thank you everybody in the team who gave a presentation today. I mean, it's very impressive, and all of y'all can see from what you've heard today why we've made the progress we have and why we continue to make the progress. Outstanding effort by a lot of different people. Before it gets lost in the shuffle, I have to thank all of those who put this together today. I mean, it's a lot of work getting this set up, get it done. Even the IT department, right, Desiree? Anyway, for everybody that worked to get this done, thank you. Now, may we have a report from the Inspector of Election Chairperson Kristin Williams.
The shortest part of the presentation. All of the votes have been tallied. The proposals presented today have all been elected by a majority of the votes. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Williams. Do I hear a motion to accept the report of the Inspectors of Election on the results of the election? Motion by Mr. Reynolds, second by Mr. Sitman. Any opposition? I ask for a motion to approve and ratify all actions of the board of directors, offices, and personnel since the last annual meeting. Do I hear such a motion? Ms. Ribas, Mr. Hoover. Thank you. We get to the exciting part. If there's no other business, I ask for motion for adjournment. Moved. Thank you. Thank you all for being here today. Appreciate your support.