Our total deposits were up over $100 million to $4.320 billion. We open five branches during 2014. As most of you who’d follow us know our branches are important to us, since all of our loans originated and all deposits are gathered through them. I think also most of you know we don’t accept broker deposits and we do not offer premium rates for large CDs. Most of our deposits are core from that perspective. We continue to stay well-capitalized and very liquid. Our investments portfolio is just under $750 million at year-end. We try to keep all maturities relatively short. We continue to see improvement on our non-performing ratios and non-performing loans. And total loans improves to 1.08% and non-performing assets to total assets drop to .87% That probably is starting to work through at this point in time.
Our net interest margin showed improvement in 2014 to 3.16%. Our efficiency ratio remain world class, and a little 50% range. Our return on average assets is .97% at year end, and our return on average acquisition is 11.5%. Overall we are very proud of our results for 2014. Now for the first time , we turn you over to Michael Ozimek, to deal with the numbers. Welcome Mike.
Michael Ozimek, Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Rob. I will now review the financial results for TrustCo for the fourth quarter in the full year 2014. The straight momentum that we built during the year continued into the fourth quarter. We saw sustained long growth during what is normally a quiet banking seasons due to holidays and weather. The loan portfolio increased by $78 million on average during the quarter and $254 million from the fourth quarter of 2013. This is a positive shift in the balance sheet from the lower yielding investments to higher yielding core loan relationships. Net income was approximately $10.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to $10.6 million for the same quarter in 2013.
As Rob said, the full year 2014 results were $44.2 million compared to $39.8 million for 2013, an increase of 11%. This resulted in a return on assets of 97 basis point about a full year 2014, 90 basis point for 2013. Return on equity increased in 2014 to 11.54% from 11.15% for the full year of 2013. There are no unusual or one time items, income items recognizing the fourth quarter that will affect the comparability to prior years. As we noted in prior conference calls, there were some one-time income items that occurred in both the first and second quarters of 2014. That would need to be considered when trailing fourth quarter results.
For the quarter our net interest margin increase of 3.17% up from 3.16% in the third quarter resulting in a taxable of 4.91% interest income of $35.7 million this quarter. Compared to $34.5 million in the fourth of 2013. The increase in net interest margin come from the active side of the balance sheet as result of a 2 basis point increase and yield earned on average interest earning assets over the third quarter. Partially offset by an increase in funding cost by 2 basis points up 2 new basis points compared to the 2 the last quarter. Average asset growth was centered in the loan portfolio which residential mortgage alone is increasing to $2.5 billion up $70 million on our third quarter averages and $237 million compared to the same quarter in 2013. Commercial loans, home equity credit lines, installment loans all showed a modest increase during the quarter. We should also note the growth in installment portfolio is primarily related to the launch of our new credit product during the fourth quarter.
