Leslie Lunak, Chief Financial Officer
Absolutely. With that, Jared back to further comments on the provision. There was some element of the provision in the fourth quarter that resulted from an increase in qualitative factors that we apply to the reserve. The way I would think about it going forward is I would expect the allowance as a percentage of loans to remain stable. And that’s how I would think about that, Jared.
Jared Shaw, Wells Fargo Securities
Okay. And then looking at the — you had mentioned that you feel comfortable with the loan-to-deposit ratio increasing as the loan growth continues to be significantly better than the deposit growth. At what point does that become something that you focus more on in terms of focusing more on the deposit side? I guess how high would you be willing to take that ratio?
John Kanas, Chairman, President and CEO
We already started focusing on that actually this year. We said before that we are willing to take that up a little over 100%% and that’s probably the proper capacity for us and it drives the earnings that we are expecting. But we are already thinking about because of the quarter to quarter basis, we expect to see this kind of growth in loans. We are already thinking about and have in fact tweaked some of our incentive plans toward deposit growth and away from loan growth just to balance the growth of both of these sides. But we are running a little bit over 100%, but I don’t know, I guess maybe start this year. We start this year in terms of loan to deposits probably just a little under 90%, right? We’re now at 92%.
Leslie Lunak, Chief Financial Officer
95% maybe.
John Kanas, Chairman, President and CEO
Yeah. So with all of the growth we had this year in loans, we still only increased that ratio from probably 85%, 86% to 92%. So we’ve got a long way to go.
Jared Shaw, Wells Fargo Securities
Okay. And then finally, just looking at M&A, could you just give us an update on your thoughts on that? And as you look at M&A is that — would you say is there a primary — are you looking to help with the deposits as a primary factor on M&A? Or are you looking to just overall expand the lending capacity and the size of the bank as you look at deals?
John Kanas, Chairman, President and CEO
Look, we continue to — this is everybody’s favorite subject, right? This is a subject that has been more talk about and less action than anything I can think of in the last five years. We continue to have active dialogue with a number of banks. We are in constant contact with people who we think make great partners for us one way or the other and complement the value and create new value. But frankly, with the stock trading at 26 or 27, barely 27 and other stocks under pressure, it’s not easy to get a deal done in here. I guess if I thought about over the last six months and the amount of time that Raj and I and the M&A team have spent, we probably spent more time looking at non-bank situations than bank situations. We are actively engaged in just about anything you can think of, but as Raj said, don’t look for an announcement next week on anything. Although we do have a number of situations that could materialize very quickly.
Jared Shaw, Wells Fargo Securities
Great. Thank you very much.
