Curtis Griffith
Analyst · Piper Sandler
Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon. On today's call, I will provide an update on our operations and local economies, given the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Texas, before reviewing the highlights of our second quarter 2020 results. Cory will discuss our proactive customer-centric strategy to manage credit and our continued focus on reducing expenses as we strive to improve our profitability and the return profile of the bank. Steve will then conclude with a more detailed review of our second quarter 2020 financial results. We will then open the call for your questions, and we have our Chief Credit Officer, Brent Bates, here to help.
Starting on Slide 4 of our presentation. I would like to thank all of our employees for their continued work ethic and dedication to our customers and communities during this unprecedented time. This has enabled the bank to maintain its high level of customer support even as the number of COVID-19 cases started to spike in Texas in June. This caused us to limit our branch lobbies once again to appointment-only service to ensure the safety of our employees and customers.
Overall, we continue to operate very effectively through our drive-through windows and are successfully transitioning our customers to our digital banking platforms, which Cory will discuss in more detail. Importantly, we have invested in the technology and developed the digital platforms and systems over the last several years, which has positioned our team to effectively service our customers remotely throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Turning to our local economies. We started to see an economic recovery in May and into June as businesses began to reopen and activity really started to pick up. As momentum picked up, so did the number of new COVID-19 cases, which has caused our governor to scale back the state's reopening plans, including the closure of bars and tightening capacity limits on restaurants. Governor Abbott has also put in place a statewide mandate on wearing masks and asked citizens to adhere to social distancing.
As of today, the state of Texas remains committed to opening K through 12 schools in the fall, and colleges are planning on a hybrid model consisting of both in-classroom and remote learning. The latest we have heard from Texas Tech University, the largest university in our west Texas market areas, is that they remain committed to having students on campus this upcoming fall semester. We are certainly watching the environment closely and continue to believe that the governor does not want to reinstitute the economic lockdown. Of course, the next 4 to 6 weeks will be very important as we watch the trajectory of new COVID-19 cases and resultant hospitalizations.
While the economic backdrop was challenging through the second quarter, I am very pleased with our financial results and the underlying earnings growth that is building within the bank as outlined on Slide 5. For the second quarter of 2020, we reported net income of $5.6 million, or $0.31 per diluted common share, which compared to net income of $6.1 million, or $0.37 per diluted common share, that we reported in the second quarter of 2019. Pretax preprovision income for the second quarter of 2020 was $20.1 million, which compares to $15.1 million in the 2020 first quarter and only $8.6 million in the year ago second quarter. We recorded a $13.1 million provision for loan loss in the second quarter, which compares to $875,000 of provision expense in the year ago quarter, and our net charge offs were $1.6 million in the second quarter.
I will touch on our provision expense in more detail in a moment, but I'd like to highlight the substantial growth that the bank has enjoyed over the last year. As we've executed upon our strategy to grow the bank and leverage our infrastructure, we are seeing the earnings power and profitability of the bank grow and believe we are very well positioned to take advantage of opportunities to further expand our franchise through this cycle. Another barometer of our success can be seen in the 11.9% annualized increase in book value per share in the second quarter of 2020 to $18.64 as compared to $18.09 in the first quarter of 2020. This growth was delivered despite the outsized provision expense that we recorded.
Our net interest margin decreased to 3.79% in the second quarter of 2020 as compared to 4.13% in the first quarter of 2020. The Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP loan fundings, accounted for an estimated 11 basis points of the decrease as well as 7 basis points being attributable to a reduction in the purchase loan income accretion. Of note, our average cost of deposits declined 26 basis points to 39 basis points in the second quarter of 2020 as compared to 65 basis points in the first quarter of 2020 and 108 basis points in the second quarter of 2019. This improvement was largely due to the decline in federal funds rate in March of this year, which allowed us to lower the rate we are paying on deposits. Looking forward, we see an opportunity to modestly reduce costs further.
Our efficiency ratio for the second quarter of 2020 was 63.3%, compared to 69.1% in the first quarter of 2020 and 77.5% in the second quarter of 2019. I am very pleased with the continued progress that we've achieved scaling our infrastructure and see room for further growth and profitability gains.
Now let me take a few moments to discuss our provision expense in more detail. The increase this quarter is primarily due to our conservative and cautious approach given the uncertain economic outlook as a result of the pandemic. Our provision expense is being driven largely by qualitative factors based upon what we're seeing in our local economies and the potential impact of COVID-19 through the second half of the year combined with specific downgrades in our portfolio, which are primarily related to loans in the hospitality and energy sectors. Importantly, our loan modifications have flattened out through the second quarter at 19.9% of the portfolio, which is only a modest rise from the 17.4% at the time of our first quarter call. That can be seen on Slide 6.
Of these loan modifications, approximately 64% have moved to interest only, which continues to be our preferred loan modification as it better aligns to the needs of the customer and the bank. As we have discussed, we have taken a very proactive approach through the pandemic with all of our borrowers, especially in the at-risk categories of our loan portfolio. This has allowed us to identify issues early, work with our customers and feel confident in our provision build this quarter. While the outlook for the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact remains uncertain, we believe that our aggressive provision builds reflects a conservative outlook as of the end of the second quarter. We also remain well capitalized with a common equity tier 1 to risk weighted assets ratio 10.51% and have excess liquidity on hand as well as approximately $450 million in unpledged securities and access to lines of credit with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, Federal Reserve Bank and other banks.
To conclude, we learned many important lessons from the Great Recession and have been positioned City Bank to weather the next downturn. We have worked aggressively to improve our operations, instill a disciplined credit culture, diversify our funding and scale the bank. As a result, we remain confident in our underwriting, risk management and capital policies and plans as we look forward.
Now let me turn the call to Cory.