We think it’s very long-tenured. That’s why we’re laying out some of these things around just how long the relationships are in consumer and in wealth and in global banking, and it’s one of the reasons why…Mike Mayo Alastair — hey, Alastair, if I can just interrupt, just when you say long-tenured, can you put any numbers around that range? Because I think that’s the one biggest most important number. If you could just — some kind of frame that a little bit?Alastair Borthwick Yeah. If you took a look at Slide number 9, we’ve tried to lay that out for you. So, you take a look at — in consumer, for example, you’re talking about 67% of the clients have been with us for more than 10 years. That’s pretty long-tenured. I know from my time in the commercial bank, our clients on average were 17 years with us.
You have long operational deposits in all of these businesses. So, that’s what we’re trying to lay out in front of everyone, so you can see that.Mike Mayo Okay. I’m sorry, I interrupted, but go ahead.Alastair Borthwick Now, I can’t remember where it was.Mike Mayo You were talking about the unrealized securities loss, the NII went higher, that’s part of the benefits of having…Alastair Borthwick No. I think, look, what I’m trying to convey to you too, Mike, and you know how this works, we’ve got to balance all of this, because we have to think about the entire balance sheet. And there’s a lot going on with the entire balance sheet. And so, what we’re trying to do is invest that excess, which has existed now in hundreds of billions for many, many years.
We’ve got to invest it the best way we can. And the way we do that, we talk about balancing it, it’s we’re — number one, trying to make sure we grow capital. We’ve done that. We’re up 100 basis points there in the last year. Number two, we’re trying to grow liquidity. We added $23 billion in this past quarter. Number three, we’re trying to grow earnings. We’re at $8.2 billion, it’s one of our best earnings quarters ever.So, look, we can always be better. You know that we’re taking the portfolio and we’re just making it smaller, it’s run off now six quarters in a row. We’re taking all of that and flowing it into cash and loans. That’s what we’ve been doing. We’ll just continue doing that, and the portfolio is going to get smaller and shorter overtime.
And when you look at the asset sensitivity now, relative to rates going up 100 or rates going down 100, we’re pretty balanced there too. We’re sort of up $3.3 billion if rates go up 100. We’re down $3.6 billion, if rates go down 100, so we feel like we’re in a pretty balanced place and lot of flexibility at this point.Mike Mayo And then just a follow-up. I guess, some will take your greatest strength as a weakness, that is you don’t pay as much on deposits as others. I estimate that you have the lowest cycle-to-date deposit beta. And so, what is it that keeps your customers around if you’re not going to pay them as much?Alastair Borthwick Well, I think, if you look at the value proposition that we’re talking about, if you go to the consumer business, for example, we’ve invested so much in client experience, whether it’s the financial centers, renovation, whether it’s the new — the people that we’ve added in that business over a long period of time, whether it’s the digital, the mobile, preferred rewards, ours is a relationship model and it has been.
And if you look then — like, just think about this quarter, look at the organic growth in consumer again, that’s a 130,000 net new checking, 17 quarters in a row. Based on that relationship value proposition, that’s what we’re attracting.If you go to the wealth management business, this was a record quarter for net new households for Merrill Lynch and a record for the Private Bank, this quarter. That tells you we’re offering people something that’s valuable. And then, we added 35,000 new bank accounts for people in our wealth management franchise. So, that again is a significant indicator that what we’re offering as value to people.And if I were to go back to my old business in business banking and commercial banking, they’re adding new logos and new clients over time in a way that we’re really happy with right now.
So, I think, the ultimate answer is, we are a purpose-driven company who put our clients’ interests first. That is helping make their financial lives better. And in this period of time, people want stability and that’s what we offer.Mike Mayo All right. Thank you.Operator We’ll go next to Glenn Schorr with Evercore. Your line is open.Glenn Schorr Hi, thanks. Maybe an easy one up first. It wasn’t noticeable, but do you feel like there was a flight-to-quality benefit during the March Madness? I would have thought that people would have flocked to the safety of BofA during times like that, but you didn’t comment specifically on that. So, thanks.Alastair Borthwick So, we’re going to decline, Glenn, to give a specific number. We’re pretty confident we saw noticeable flight to safety.
And it comes in two parts. Part one is, during a period like March 10th and in around that week or two. And then just the second part that comes with onboarding clients over a period of time, who are trying to move operational accounts here and that takes a while, that has a lag. So, you can think about, we get some of the deposits quite quickly, but relationships take longer time to build and onboard.So, you can see from our numbers, it was improving before the disruption. We’ve chosen not to put an exact number on it, because there are typical ebbs and flows in any given quarter, leading up especially to a payroll end of quarter. But, generally speaking, I’d say, we were improving anyway. A lot of that is just organic growth, but we obviously benefited.Glenn Schorr Okay.
You noted though one more hike and then cuts through the back half of the year, that’s the forward curve. What’s interesting is the Fed doesn’t have the same forward curve as the market has. So, I’m curious if you could talk to the sensitivity of what if there are no cuts, how much of that helps your forward NII thought process?Alastair Borthwick Well, we do use the forward curve, because we feel like it’s the most kind of dispassionate assessment with the most information out there in the market from the broader set of people and, importantly, it’s not just us making it up. So, we use the forward curve. And I even mentioned during my remarks, things are bouncing around, is it one hike? Is it zero? Is it two cuts? But the sensitivity that we provide around up 100 or down 100 is probably the best we can offer at this stage.
And then, depending on how things develop, and they are developing quickly, it will allow you to adjust the model accordingly.Glenn Schorr The last simple one is, held-to-maturity, you talked a lot about, I think the answer is, I know it, but I’ll ask it bluntly anyway. So, you don’t feel like you have to do anything material with your unrealized loss [indiscernible]. I get it, it’s in treasuries, it’s swaps, it’s agency mortgages, you don’t have a credit issue. But at this point, given the stability, your deposit base, loan growth, capital growth, do you feel like you can just kind of ride it out and grind it down?Alastair Borthwick Correct. Right now, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. We’ve communicated that pretty clearly and that’s what we’re continuing to do.
It just keeps getting smaller and shorter.Glenn Schorr Thank you. Appreciate it.Operator We’ll go next to Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.Steven Chubak Hey. Good morning.Brian Moynihan Good morning, Steven.Steven Chubak So, Alastair, you had mentioned some of the strong KPIs that you’re seeing within GWIM, at the same time the business did see a pretty material decline in pre-tax margins, both sequentially and year-on-year. I wanted to better understand how the business might evolve under some of the new leadership? And how we should just be thinking about the margin trajectory? I wanted to better understand how you’re balancing investment needs with goal of delivering continued profitability?Brian Moynihan The margin came down largely because you had to sort of incremental hit to the investment side revenue as the markets fell year-over-year, but we’d expect that margin to move back up to its more traditional 20%, 25% to 30%.
