Excluding the impact of the two securities repositioning, other non-interest income was down 9%, reflecting weakness in foreign exchange trading and other capital markets activities. Net interest income was up over $100 million or 6%, which largely offset the decline in the other non-interest income categories. This translated to flat total revenue growth. Reported expenses were up 6% for the full year to $5.3 billion. Excluding notable items in both periods as listed on the slide, the expenses were $5.1 billion in 2023, up 4.8%, which compares favorably to 2022. As we’ve noticed previously, we expect to bring the expense growth rate down further in 2024. We have clear line of sight to two key areas of increase. Base pay adjustments within compensation expense and depreciation and amortization increases within equipment and software.
On a blended rate, we expect to provide base pay adjustments of approximately $65 million in 2024, which will hit our compensation line beginning in the second quarter. This compares to base pay adjustments of $80 million in 2023. Within equipment and software expense, we expect a $65 million or 10% increase in 2024. Combined, these two-line items will drive approximately 3% increase in operating expenses above 2023 levels alone. That said, we expect to continue to generate meaningful efficiency gains from our productivity office and have identified further opportunities for improvement. As we look out to the first-quarter, we expect the following: first-quarter compensation expense will include our annual equity incentive payments, including those for retirement-eligible employees, along with modest employee headcount growth associated with growth in the underlying businesses.
This should translate to a sequential increase of $50 million to $55 million. Employee benefits expense is expected to increase by approximately $10 million due to seasonally higher payroll taxes. Turning to Page 10. Capital levels and regulatory ratios remained strong in the quarter. We continue to operate at levels well above our required regulatory minimums. Our common equity Tier 1ratio under the standardized approach was flat with the prior quarter at 11.4%, as capital accretion offset a modest increase in risk-weighted asset levels. This reflects a 440 basis point buffer above our regulatory requirements. Our Tier 1 leverage ratio was 8.1%, up 20 basis-points from the prior quarter. At quarter-end, our unrealized pretax loss on available-for-sale securities was $924 million.
We’ve returned over $300 million to common shareholders in the quarter through cash dividends of $156 million in common stock repurchases of $146 million. For the full-year, we returned approximately $980 million to common stockholders, including common stock repurchases of approximately $350 million. And with that, Ruth, please open the line for questions.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll go first to Glenn Schorr with Evercore.
Michael O’Grady: Good morning, Glenn.
Glenn Schorr: Good morning. So I appreciate all the numbers you helped us, but I’ll try to peak a little bit more under the covers. So deposits stable, heard your thoughts on 1Q NII on the further deposit pricing pressure. So the question is, as we go throughout the year do you have any window into that stability and deposits sticking around? And then with the combination of 75% floating-rate loan book and still pressure on deposits is it reasonable to assume that NII might go down in second quarter forward before stabilizing later in the year and rising. I know that’s a little bit further look into the future, but…
Michael O’Grady: Yes. But it’s — I think it’s a very reasonable way to frame looking out further into the year. And you’re right, for us to say full year numbers at this point, it’s just too early, but it is good to think about how the assets and liabilities are going to react with looming rate cuts. And I think it’s helpful to think back on how the impact in NIM occurred with rates rising. Initially it was very different than what happened eventually when betas were much higher. And I think on the way down, we might have a similar situation where the first cuts may be different than the later ones. And two things jump out in my mind. One is, we have never tried to be a price setter in deposits. Our goal has always been keep the deposits in the house, and we were very aggressive at following what we saw market pricing was.
And the second thing is that, as we get these initial cuts, I could — we could see the market reacting in a way to keep deposit costs, deposit yields for clients higher to hold onto deposits. And so, I think initially it might be tougher than what happens eventually. Now, all that said, volumes matter a lot, and it’s obviously been extremely hard for us to predict where volumes were going to go. And we saw October better than we anticipated, November was better than October, December was better than November. And so, volumes are going to be critical in what happens in the first half of the year. And it’s just super hard to predict.
Glenn Schorr: I definitely appreciate that. This one might be a little bit easier, the follow-up on fee operating leverage. I mean, just by means of pricing alone, or the markets alone, the markets had a strong end to the fourth quarter, so your fee run rate should probably be a lot better going into the first quarter, and with your comments on even more sharper discipline on expenses, do you expect to make some meaningful progress early on in the year in this fee to expense ratio?
