I should also note that about 99.2% of CRE General Office is in current pay status. Moving to Slide 15. We have maintained excellent balance sheet strength. Our CET1 ratio increased to 10.4% as we look to grow capital given the dynamic macro environment and new capital rules proposed by the bank regulators. We returned a total of $450 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We plan to maintain strong and growing capital and liquidity to levels that fortify our balance sheet against macro uncertainties and position us to quickly transition to any new regulatory rules that may impact banks of our size. Turning to Slide 16 and 17. I’ll update you on a few of our key initiatives we have underway across the bank, so that we can deliver growth and strong returns for our shareholders.
First, on Slide 16, we’ve included just a few of the business initiatives we are pursuing to drive improving performance over the medium term. On the commercial side, we highlight how we are positioned to support the significant growth in private capital. Although deal activity has been relatively muted recently, many sponsors have meaningful amounts of capital to deploy. So there is a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for M&A and capital markets activity given the right market conditions. We have been serving the sponsor community with distinctive capabilities for the last 10 years and we’ve established ourselves at the top of the middle market sponsor lead tables. And our new private bankers will significantly expand our sponsor relationships, and we stand ready to leverage our capabilities in this space when sponsor activity picks up.
We also think there is a tremendous opportunity in the payment space, and we’ve been investing in our Treasury Solutions business developing integrated payments platforms and expanding our client hedging capabilities. On the consumer side, our entry into New York Metro is going very well with some early success attracting new customers to the bank and growing deposits about 9x faster than in our legacy branches, as we leverage our full customer service capabilities to drive some of the highest customer acquisition and sales rates in our network. The build-out of the Private Bank is also going very well. These bankers have hit the ground running and have already brought in around $500 million in deposits and investment balances through a soft launch in the back half of Q3.
This is a coast-to-coast team with a presence in some of our key markets like New York, Boston and places where we’d like to do more like Florida and California. We plan to open a few Private Banking centers in these geographies and build appropriate scale in our wealth business with our Clarfeld legacy Wealth business as the centerpiece of that effort. Turning to Slide 17 on the top left side is our balance sheet optimization program, which is progressing well. The chart illustrates the relatively rapid rundown of the Non-Core portfolio, which is comprised of our $9 billion shorter-duration indirect auto portfolio and purchased consumer loans. This portfolio is expected to decline by about $7.6 billion from where we are now to about $4.7 billion at the end of 2025, and as this run found, we plan to redeploy the majority of cash paydowns to building core bank liquidity with the remainder used to support organic relationship-based loan growth in the core portfolio.
The capital recaptured through reduction in Non-Core RWA will be reallocated to support the growth of the Private Bank. In summary, this strategy strengthens liquidity has already been a source of about $3 billion of term funding ABS issuance this year. It builds capital by reducing RWAs and it’s accretive to NIM, EPS and ROTCE. Next to our TOP program on the right side of the slide. Our latest program is well underway and on target to deliver a $115 million pretax run rate benefit by year-end. Our TOP programs are essential to improving returns over the medium term and we are ready to launch on top 9, looking for efficiency opportunities driven by further automation and the use of AI to better serve our customers. We are looking at ways to simplify our organization and save more in third-party spend as well.
In light of pressure on revenue given the rate environment, we are targeting to keep 2024 underlying expenses flat. On the technology front, we have a very extensive agenda with a multiyear next-gen tech cloud migration, targeting the exit of all of our data centers by 2025 and the program to converge our core deposit system onto a cloud-based modern banking platform. We’ve come a long way in modernizing our platform since the IPO. And on the ESG front, we recently announced a $50 billion sustainable finance target, which we plan to achieve by 2030 and commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035. And we are working diligently to help our clients prepare for and finance their own transitions to a lower carbon economy. Moving to the outlook for the fourth quarter on Slide 18.
Our outlook incorporates the Private Bank and assumes that the Federal rate steady through the end of the year. We expect NII to be down approximately 2% next quarter, given the impact from noninterest-bearing and low-cost deposits migrating to higher cost categories, albeit at a decelerating rate, more than offsetting the benefit of higher asset yields, Non-Core runoff and day count. Based on the forward curve, we expect the cumulative deposit beta at the end of 2023 to be approximately 50% and to rise to a terminal level of low 50s percent before the first rate cut. Noninterest income is expected to be up 3% to 4% with a seasonal pickup in capital markets depending on the market environment. Noninterest expense should be broadly stable, which includes the Private Bank and excludes the anticipated FDIC special assessment.
Net charge-offs are expected to rise to approximately mid-40s basis points as we continue to work through the General Office portfolio and expected further normalization. We feel good about our reserve coverage around the current level and the ACL level will continue to benefit from loan runoff. Our CET1 is expected to increase to approximately 10.5%, with the opportunity to engage in a modest level of share repurchases, the execution of which will depend upon our ongoing assessment of the external environment. Beyond the 4Q ’23 guidance, as I mentioned earlier, we are targeting flat 2024 underlying expenses. This includes the Private Bank on the Non-Core portfolio and excludes the anticipated FDIC special assessment. Also, we’ve included Slide 25 in the appendix on the swaps impact through 2027.
We expect higher swap expense in 2024 to be partly offset by the benefit to NII from the Non-Core rundown. Notably, the swap expense drag will reduce meaningfully over 2025 through 2027 as swaps run off and the Fed normalizes short rates. In addition, the impact of terminated swaps is dramatically lower in ’26 and 2027. To wrap up, we delivered solid results this quarter while navigating through a dynamic environment. Importantly, we made good progress positioning the company with a strong capital, liquidity and funding position, which will serve us well as regulatory requirements are finalized and if the environment becomes more challenging. Our balance sheet strength also positions us to take advantage of opportunities through our strategic priorities as we continue to strengthen the franchise for the future and deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns.
With that, I’ll hand it back over to Bruce.
