Net income in the second quarter of $29.6 million produced core earnings per share of $0.31, a core pre-tax pre-provision ROA of 1.82% and a core efficiency ratio of 53.1%.
Importantly, pre-tax pre-provision net revenue of $42.9 million was slightly ahead of the consensus estimate, reflecting good underlying second quarter momentum in our key businesses.
Lending rebounded in the second quarter, increasing year-to-date loan growth to 5.3% annualized rate, and that excludes PPP loans.
Bucking national trends, our branch team has originated $209 million in home equity loans year-to-date, which represents a 12% increase year-over-year.
Consumer and small business household growth helped fuel noninterest income, which remained strong at $26.1 million, even as mortgage gain on sale income tapered.
Card-related interchange income at $7.4 million was a quarterly company record by a wide margin.
At $2.7 million, trust revenue was a quarterly record as well.
Our SBA business contributed $1.6 million to gain on sale income and SBA pipelines have never been stronger.
Expenses remain well controlled, and the core efficiency ratio was an impressive 53.21%.
The second quarter, our active mobile users increased an annualized 22%.
Our net interest margin for the second quarter was 3.17%, down from 3.40% last quarter.
Loan yields fell by 11 basis points, but we were able to offset most of that by reducing the cost of interest-bearing liabilities by seven basis points.
For example, we began the quarter with $479 million in PPP loans.
By June 30, that figure had shrunk to $292 million.
Similarly, excess cash dropped from $414 million to $189 million over the period.
First, the first quarter NIM had the benefit -- excuse me, the first quarter NIM had the benefit of $7.9 million of PPP income, while second quarter PPP income was only $5.5 million.
Second, we put excess cash to work by purchasing approximately $300 million of securities in the second quarter.
Those investments will generate about $3.9 million of net interest income annually or about $0.03 per share, but they still yield us than what we were earning on the PPP loans, and it's still a layer of thin margin assets on top of the balance sheet that drags down the NIM.
Our previous guidance was for our core NIM to fall between 3.20% and 3.30%, and our core NIM for the second quarter came in at 3.20%, which was within that range, albeit at the bottom of that range.
As a result, we are reiterating our core NIM guidance of 3.25% plus or minus five basis points.
First, we realized that deferrals were the number one topic a year ago, but our deferrals have all but disappeared from a peak of over $1 billion during the pandemic to $138 million last quarter to only $59.5 million this quarter or just 88 basis points of total loans.
Second, nonperforming loans are just 0.82% of total loans ex PPP, and the reserve coverage of nonperforming loans is 182.9%.
Third, we just completed our regular semiannual loan review process in which we review every commercial credit in excess of $350,000.
This involved a review of about 1,000 relationships totaling $2.4 billion out of a $3.9 billion commercial loan portfolio.
At the conclusion of that exercise, there were 0 downgrades to special mention or substandard in the portfolio.
Classified loans, for example, dropped from $72.3 million to $56.3 million, a level very close to the pre-pandemic level of $52.5 million at the end of 2019.
Fourth, delinquencies, which are sometimes seen as an early warning sign of trouble ahead, not only went down from last quarter, but they are at an all-time low for our bank at just 11 basis points of total loans ex PPP.
Fifth and finally, our reserves remain at 1.50% of total loans ex PPP protecting our capital and our earnings stream going forward.
As for fee income, even with mortgage income slowing down a bit in the second half, we anticipate being able to sustain the pace of $26 million to $27 million per quarter in noninterest income for the remainder of 2021 due to favorable trends we are seeing in SBA, swap and trust income.
NIE came in at $51.5 million in the second quarter, down slightly from $51.9 million last quarter.
Our previous NIE guidance was $52 million to $53 million per quarter, so we've been comfortably below that.
We do, however, expect some expense associated with returning to a more normal work and travel environment, elevated hospitalization expense that we have been seeing, new hires in revenue-producing and credit positions and the new recently announced equipment finance effort, bringing our NIE guidance to $53 million to $54 million per quarter for the remainder of the year.
Finally, we repurchased 72,724 shares in the second quarter at an average price of $13.95.

Summary:
Net income in the second quarter of $29.6 million produced core earnings per share of $0.31, a core pre-tax pre-provision ROA of 1.82% and a core efficiency ratio of 53.1%.
By June 30, that figure had shrunk to $292 million.