Mark Sander – Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Thanks, Mike and as Mike alluded to I’ll cover the quarter, then try to give a little bit of guidance for 2015 outlook as well in my remarks. Loans for the quarter were up $217 million principally as a result of the Great Lakes acquisition which was comprised largely of commercial real estate in our markets. Away from acquisitions, as Mike alluded to our legacy non covered loans were up about $45 million or 3% annualized in the quarter. In our last earnings call, we said our seasonally slow fourth quarter loan growth would be similar to third quarter levels which is precisely what we experienced. This $45 million increase was offset by over $30 million in anticipated pay downs in the portfolio acquired as part of the Popular acquisition in August as several healthcare borrowers refinanced with HUD as these loans were originally underwritten.
We were pleased to maintain positive loan momentum while in the midst of three acquisitions and some repositioning activities. Repositioning activities as we undertook several steps to strengthen our teams in support of anticipated future growth. In mortgage, we added staff almost all with variable compensation to increase our market share in line with our market presence.
In commercial, we reorganized into four business units of business banking, middle market, specialty banking and commercial real estate all of which have nice growth opportunities. We’ve talked for some time about our talent upgrades and how we have broadened our lending platforms in reach as we continue to build on our strong existing teams. I would say that we largely concluded that process in the fourth quarter. In doing so, we have added some incremental cost to our expense rate albeit not as high as the fourth quarter levels which were elevated in this area due to both separation and recruitment costs associated with these realignments. Paul is going to elaborate on the cost aspect of this in a few minutes.
We certainly expect to see incremental growth going forward as a result of these investments. In 2014 in total, we grew loans organically away from acquisitions 6.5%, consistent with the guidance we provided all year. For 2015 against a larger base, we expect growth rates similar to or perhaps a bit stronger than last year’s levels.
Turning to non-interest income, we again closely matched expectations again continuing the strong momentum we’ve experienced all year. Fee revenues were up 6.5% in total this quarter on a year over year basis and 10% year over year in total. This was another solid quarter in fee income driven by the same trends we’ve seen and the same trends we’ve discussed on our earnings calls all year.
Deposit service charges grew 8% in the quarter versus the year earlier period. This was driven by solid growth in treasure management fees and our acquired business units hit their forecasted fee targets which together more than offset the continuing declines in NSF income. In wealth management, our fees were robust up almost 9% relative to Q4 last year, maintaining a strong trend we have generated for several years. Our total managed assets are now $7.3 billion. They continue to grow again a reflection of the quality of our team in this business unit as well.
Card-based fees were up almost 16% year over year in Q4, driven principally by legacy growth. Simply our card population and our number of swipes per card both grew relative to last year. Mortgage volume grew but was still relatively modest I would say, as our realigned and refocused team had just started to operate this quarter. Other service charges lastly, grew nicely relative to both linked and last year’s fourth quarter as we expanded our sales of swaps.
So for the full year, we grew fee income almost 5%. As you think about it, we forecasted and achieved low single digit growth that we talked about and then our fee incomes were helped slightly by additions from acquisitions in the last four months.
For 2015, we remain optimistic about several opportunities in our fee income areas. Most notably, our treasury management business and middle market and business banking. Wealth management still has several areas that we think can expand further. We’re expecting higher mortgage banking income from our improved team that I talked about and our new fee income stream from the sale of lease volume should add incrementally over 2014 levels.
