“These outstanding results are a product of Esquire’s increased brand awareness in two unique national markets driven by investments in our digital marketing platform, people, and other tech focused initiatives,” stated Tony Coelho, Chairman of the Board of Directors.
“Our national commercial lending pipeline remains robust and will continue to drive core variable rate loan growth and associated commercial deposit opportunities,” stated Andrew C. Sagliocca, Chief Executive Officer and President. “Additionally, there are significant growth opportunities in our fee-based payment processing vertical as we continue to expand our investment in tech and services. Both national verticals have a large addressable market and benefit from Esquire’s ‘solutions based approach’ to our target clients’ growth needs rather than a product based approach utilized by most financial services companies.”
Third Quarter Earnings
Net income for the quarter ended September 30, 2022 was $7.7 million, or $0.94 per diluted share, compared to $2.5 million, or $0.32 per diluted share for the same period in 2021. Returns on average assets and equity for the current quarter were 2.48% and 20.60%, respectively, compared to 0.97% and 7.32% for the same period of 2021. The third quarter of 2021 was impacted by a $2.5 million charge, net of tax, related to the reclassification of the legacy NFL consumer post settlement loan portfolio. Excluding this charge, net income, diluted earnings per share, return on average assets, and return on average common equity for the third quarter of 2021 was $5.0 million, $0.63, 1.93% and 14.49%, respectively.
Net interest income for the third quarter of 2022 increased $4.3 million, or 37.8%, to $15.5 million, due to growth in average interest earning assets totaling $197.7 million, or 19.9%, to $1.2 billion and increases in the average yields on interest earning assets when compared to the same period in 2021. Our net interest margin increased to 5.18% in the current quarter as the margin was positively impacted by growth in higher yielding variable rate commercial loans and the impact of increases in short-term market interest rates. The average yield on loans increased 78 basis points to 6.53% in the current quarter driven by commercial loan growth. Additionally, approximately 57% of our portfolio is comprised of variable rate commercial loans tied to prime that were positively impacted by increases in short-term market rates. Average loans in the quarter increased $116.2 million, or 15.7%, to $854.4 million when compared to the third quarter of 2021, driven primarily by our national commercial lending platform. Excluding the PPP loan portfolio in the third quarter of 2021, average loan growth would have been approximately 20%. Total loan originations during the quarter were $59.1 million, partially offset by elevated paydowns of $43.3 million. Our loan-to-deposit ratio was 73.7% as our low-cost deposit base increased $210.4 million, or 21.5%, fueled by demand and escrow deposits. Average securities in the quarter increased $76.5 million to $214.7 million as management opportunistically invested excess liquidity in the investment portfolio driving average yields up 41 basis points to 2.08% and increasing interest income $543 thousand to $1.1 million in the current quarter. The increases in short-term market interest rates increased yields and the corresponding interest income on our reverse repurchase agreements as well as our interest earning cash balances.
The provision for loan losses was $650 thousand for the third quarter of 2022 which was a $3.1 million decrease from the $3.8 million third quarter 2021 provision. The third quarter of 2021 included a charge for the reclassification of our legacy NFL consumer post settlement loan portfolio to loans held for sale and were subsequently exited. As of September 30, 2022, Esquire had an allowance to loans ratio of 1.24% as compared to 1.20% in the trailing quarter ended June 30, 2022. The increase in the allowance as a percentage of loans was general reserve driven considering the qualitative factors associated with the current uncertain economic environment.
Noninterest income was $6.4 million for the third quarter of 2022, a $1.5 million increase from the same period in 2021, driven by increases in payment processing fees, ASP fees, and the third quarter of 2021 valuation losses on the NFL portfolio of $384 thousand. Payment processing income was $5.5 million for the third quarter of 2022, a $231 thousand increase from the same period in 2021. Payment processing volumes and transactions for the credit and debit card processing platform increased $1.1 billion, or 17.4%, to $7.3 billion and 27.5 million, or 24.0%, to 142.1 million transactions, respectively, for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, as compared to the same period in 2021. These increases were driven by expansion of our sales channels through ISOs, increased number of merchants, volume increases, the reopening of the economy post pandemic and were facilitated by our focus on technology and other resources in the payments vertical. We use proprietary and industry leading technology to ensure card brand and regulatory compliance, support multiple processing platforms, manage daily risk across 75,000 small business merchants in all 50 states, and perform commercial treasury clearing services for approximately $7.3 billion in processing volume across 142.1 million transactions. ASP fee income totaled $886 thousand for the third quarter of 2022, as this fee income on our off-balance sheet funds is directly impacted by the average balance of those funds and short-term interest rates.
Noninterest expense increased $1.8 million, or 20.3%, to $10.8 million for the third quarter of 2022, as compared to the same period in 2021. This increase was primarily driven by increases in employee compensation and benefits, hiring related costs, advertising and marketing, data processing, and travel and business relations. Employee compensation and benefits costs increased $996 thousand, or 18.0%, due to increases in staff and officer level employees to support our growth, investment in digital platforms and related sales/marketing divisions, and the impact of salary, bonus and stock-based compensation increases. Due to the effects of inflation on the overall economy and consumer prices, we proactively increased our employees’ base salary at year-end in excess of industry and national averages to support employee retention. Hiring related costs increased $278 thousand as we continue to invest in staffing to support our growth. Advertising and marketing costs increased $191 thousand, or 66.1%, as we continued to grow our digital marketing