During the quarter, we sold $800 million of loans and transferred another $1.1 billion of loans to held for sale status. The net gain or loss on the sales and transfers was immaterial. Collectively, these transactions were part of our strategy to optimize our balance sheet and improve returns and going forward we will continue to opportunistically evaluate loan sales to further this strategy.
On a year-over-year basis, average performing loans increased $8 billion or 6% driven by broad-based growth across most portfolios. End of period loans increased at a lower rate of $5.6 billion or 4% compared to the prior year, as we conducted approximately $4 billion of loan sales in the second half of 2014. Our solid loan production performance reflects our execution of targeted growth initiatives, alongside generally improving economic conditions in our markets.
Turning to deposit performance. Average client deposits were up $4.7 billion or 4% compared to the prior quarter, and 7% compared to the prior year, driven by improved and broad-based growth across all of our lines of business.
While a portion of this growth is seasonal and will decline in the first quarter, the majority of the growth is core and reflects both investments we have made in client facing platforms, such as Summit View and our Treasury and payment solutions offerings, and our overall increased focus on meeting more of our clients’ deposits needs. Rates paid on deposits were stable sequentially and declined by 4 basis points compared to the prior year.
Slide 12 provides an update on our capital position. Common equity Tier 1 expanded by approximately $200 million during the quarter. As a result of growth and retained earnings, while the estimated Basel III Common Equity Tier 1 ratio remained relatively stable at 9.7%, due to balance sheet growth. Tangible book value per share increased 2% from the prior quarter and a full 10% compared to the prior year, due primarily to growth in retained earnings.
During the quarter, we issued $500 million of non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock as part of a longer term process to optimize the mix between common and non-common Tier 1 capital. We also repurchased $110 million of common stock.
The cumulative actions we’ve taken to improve our risk and earnings profile combined with our strong capital and liquidity levels should help us to further increase capital returns to shareholders.
We submitted our 2015 capital plan earlier this month and will have more to report on this matter in March.
Lastly, as of year-end, our liquidity coverage ratio continues to exceed the January 1, 2016 90% requirement.
With that, I’ll now turn things back over to Bill to cover our business segment performance.
Bill Rogers
Great! Thanks, Aleem.
And I’ll draw your attention to slide 13. In consumer banking and private wealth management, we continued to make progress on our core initiatives, core growth initiatives, while holding the line on expenses. Looking at the numbers, net income declined 5% sequentially but was up 13% year-over-year. The sequential decline was driven primarily by higher provision expense due to some moderating asset quality improvement.
Total revenue was essentially flat compared to the third quarter, but was up 3% year-over-year. Net interest income increased relative to both prior periods, driven by continued growth in loans and deposits. Non-interest income was down sequentially due you to seasonally higher income and certain nonrecurring fees earned in the third quarter. Year-over-year, non-interest income was up 3% driven by growth in wealth management-related income and card fees. Average loans were up a half a percentage point on a sequential basis with double-digit growth in consumer direct partially offset by continued runoff in the home equity portfolio and certain loan sales during the quarter.
