You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I'm pleased to report on the Company's solid financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2019 as well as for the full 2019 year.
We continue to generate strong loan and core deposit growth and maintain solid asset quality and capital ratios, both on a sequential quarter and a year-over-year basis.
For the full 2019 year compared to last year, we improved our net interest income, net interest margin, non-interest income and efficiency ratio.
Our profitability and strong capital position enabled us to repurchase 165,700 shares of CPF stock during the fourth quarter.
During the 2019 year, we repurchased 797,000 shares or roughly 2.8% of our common stock outstanding as of the end of 2018.
Combined with cash dividends, we have returned $48.5 million in capital to our shareholders this past year.
We continue to execute with our RISE2020 initiative to enhance customer experience, drive stronger long-term growth and profitability, and improve shareholder returns.
In the fourth quarter, we launched our new website under the cpb.
bank domain name and implemented an end-to-end commercial loan origination system that will drive better efficiency.
The development of our new online and mobile banking platform is progressing well and our employees are excited to pilot the new platform in the first quarter.
Key steps toward our 2020 milestones in the area of the branch and ATM modernization were achieved with construction under way at our main branch headquarters and our new ATM selected.
The Hawaii economy continues to perform well with annual visitor arrivals set to exceed 10 million for the first time ever, continued strength in construction activity and growing importance of military in Hawaii over U.S.'s Indo-Pacific strategy.
Our total assets surpassed the $6 billion mark at year-end and reflected an increase of 3.5% from the previous year-end.
Our balance sheet composition continues to move in the right direction with growth focused in loans and core deposits.
Total loans increased by $82 million or 1.9% over the previous quarter and by $371 million or 9.1% year-over-year.
On a sequential quarter basis, increases were led by $43 million in growth in consumer loans and $41 million in growth in resi mortgages.
On a year-over-year basis, the $371 million loan growth was broad-based in almost all loan categories.
Asset quality continued to be strong with non-performing assets of $1.7 million, which represented 3 basis points of total assets.
Total deposits increased on a sequential quarter basis by 1.6% and year-over-year by 3.5%.
Importantly, core deposits contributed to all that growth with the sequential quarter increase of $103 million or 2.5% led by a 3.7% increase in non-interest bearing demand balances.
The year-over-year increase in core deposits of $243 million or 6.1% was led by a 10.5% increase in savings and money market balances and a 9.3% increase in interest-bearing demand.
The increases in core deposits, both sequential quarter and year-over-year, were offset by planned decreases and higher cost government time deposits.
Our loan-to-deposit ratio was 87% as of the end of the year.
Our efforts in business development and targeted deposit gathering strategies have yield successful results in deposit growth.
We are continuing to ramp up these efforts in 2020, supported by further strengthening of our teams and technology platforms.
Net income for the fourth quarter of 2019 was $14.2 million or $0.50 per diluted share, compared to net income of $14.6 million or $0.51 per diluted share reported last quarter.
Return on average assets in the fourth quarter was 0.95% and return on average equity was 10.70%.
For the full 2019 year, net income was $58.3 million or $2.03 per diluted share, compared to net income of $59.5 million or $2.01 per diluted share in the prior year.
Return on average assets for the 2019 year was 0.99% and return on average equity was 11.36%.
For the full-year 2019, pre-tax pre-provision net revenue totaled $84.2 million, which was a year-over-year increase of $7.1 million or 9.2%.
We are pleased we were able to post solid 2019 results, while investing for our future through our RISE2020 initiative.
Net interest income for the fourth quarter increased by $2.3 million to $47.9 million on a sequential quarter basis, and the net interest margin was 3.43%.
The fourth quarter included $1.1 million in non-recurring interest and dividend income, which positively impacted net interest income and net interest margin.
On a normalized basis, the fourth quarter net interest margin was 3.34%, which represented a 4 basis point sequential quarter increase.
The sequential quarter normalized net interest margin expansion was driven by increases in average loan balances and decreases in interest-bearing deposit and borrowing costs.
During the fourth quarter, we recorded a provision for loan and lease losses of $2.1 million, compared to a provision of $1.5 million recorded in the prior quarter.
Net charge-offs in the fourth quarter totaled $2.3 million, compared to net charge-offs of $1.6 million in the prior quarter.
The charge-offs primarily came from the Hawaii consumer loan portfolio.
At December 31, our allowance for loan and lease losses was $48.0 million or 1.08% of outstanding loans and leases.
Fourth quarter other operating income totaled $9.8 million, compared to $10.3 million in the prior quarter.
The decrease was primarily due to lower mortgage banking income.
Other operating expense for the fourth quarter was $36.2 million, compared to $34.9 million in the prior quarter.
The sequential quarter increase was driven by higher salaries and employee benefits, and higher computer software expense.
These increases relate to our RISE2020 initiative and also include accruals for incentive compensation.
The efficiency ratio was 62.81% in the fourth quarter, compared to 62.48% in the prior quarter.
The effective tax rate increased to 26.7% due to return to provision adjustments.
Going forward, we expect that effective tax rate to be in the 24% to 26% range.
Overall, we are pleased with another solid quarter and the continued positive momentum as we finished up the 2019 year.
Our team is working hard to deliver on our RISE2020 commitments, and we look forward to sharing our progress with you over the coming quarters.
At this time we will be happy to address any questions you may have.

user
central pacific financial q4 earnings per share $0.50.
q4 earnings per share $0.50.
central pacific financial - net interest income for fourth quarter of 2019 was $47.9 million, compared to $44.7 million in the year-ago quarter.

assistant