Average loan balances increased nearly 29% compared to full year 2013, this loan growth is a result of deeper coverage in key markets, more loans to later stage clients and the growing momentum of our overall brand awareness. Deposits increased for the year with average on balance sheet deposits up 30%, we have also seen tremendous growth in average client investment funds, $558 million at year-end 2013 versus $1.4 billion at the year-end of 2014 or 158% year-over-year.
In our business the ability to move deposits off balance sheet is key to keeping our capital ratios in our target range. Growth in client investment funds shows our ability to manage deposits off balance sheet in a way that works well for our clients and for the bank. Once again it is worth mentioning that our registered investment advisor, Square 1 Asset Management had zero investments as late as summer 2013 and we ended 2014 with $976 million in client investment funds under management.
We often talk about the volatility that exists in certain elements of our business. This quarter we saw a degree of higher charge offs at a 118 basis points for the quarter but the total for 2014 resulting charge offs was 68 basis points. This certainly exceeds our historical charge off average of just slightly less than 1%.
We keep a close watch on our sector and all the key metrics point to good health, strong VC investment and fund raising and healthy exist across the Board in 2014. We remain committed to our growth strategy. We will continue to hire throughout 2014 while looking to be as effective in everything we do. On the hiring front 28 people joined us in 2014. We’re seeing the positive results of shifting our mix of loan business to include more later-stage companies. We believe this loan mix tilt will help us continue to lower credit costs. All in all the Square 1 brand is accelerating as evidenced by the growth in new clients, loan balances and deposits. Those were the Square 1 headlines for 2014, we’re very pleased with our results and we certainly expect to build on that success in 2015. I will turn the call now over to Pat Oakes who will talk more about our results. Pat?
Pat Oaks – Chief Financials Officer
Thanks, Dough and good morning everyone. Let me highlight a few items before turning the call back over to Doug. Our net interest margin for the quarter was 4.12%, an increase of 12 basis points over the prior quarter. The margin was helped by a decrease in our cash balances along with 921,000 in higher loan fees. Overall loan fees increased from $2.4 million to $3.4 million. The loan yield excluding fees decreased nine basis points to 5.41% for the quarter. Our provision expense for the quarter was $4 million, an increase of 1.5 million from our previous quarter mainly due to the higher net charge-off Doug discussed earlier.
