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: In the third quarter, Cullen/Frost earned $106.3 million or $1.65 per share compared with earnings of $95.1 million or $1.50 per share reported in the same quarter of last year.
And this compared with $116.4 million or $1.80 per share in the second quarter.
We continue to focus on our organic strategy while the economy works to move past supply chain issues and other lingering effects of the pandemic.
Average deposits continued their strong increase in the third quarter and were $39.1 billion, an increase of 19% compared with $32.9 billion in the third quarter of last year.
Overall, average loans in the third quarter were $16.2 billion compared with $18.1 billion in the third quarter of 2020, but this included the impact of PPP loans.
Excluding PPP loans, third quarter average loans of $14.8 billion were essentially flat from a year ago but up an annualized 6% on a linked quarter basis.
And looking forward, we're very encouraged about the outlook for loan growth.
New loan commitments booked through the third quarter excluding PPP loans were up by 11% compared to the first nine months of last year.
For the quarter, new loan commitments were up by 6% on a linked quarter basis.
We were especially pleased that the linked quarter increase was due primarily to C&I commitments, which were up 30%.
Our current weighted pipeline is 41% higher than one year ago and 22% higher than last quarter.
The increases are in both C&I, up 22%; and CRE, up 28%.
The market continues to be very competitive.
In the third quarter, 69% of the deals we lost were due to structure compared to 50% in the quarter before.
We also continue to add to our commercial customer base, and we recorded 619 new commercial relationships during the quarter.
And while this was down from the same quarter a year ago when we were experiencing incredible PPP success, it is 2/3 higher than the quarter immediately before the PPP program.
As with the second quarter, we did not report a credit loss expense in the third quarter.
Our asset quality outlook is stable and in general, problem assets are declining in number.
New problems have dropped to pre-pandemic levels.
Net charge-offs for the third quarter totaled $2.1 million compared with $1.6 million in the second quarter.
Annualized net charge-offs for the third quarter were five basis points of average loans.
Nonaccrual loans were $57.1 million at the end of the third quarter, a slight decrease from the $57.3 million at the end of the second quarter.
Overall, delinquencies for accruing loans at the end of the third quarter were $95.3 million or 60 basis points of period-end loans, and these are manageable pre-pandemic levels.
What started out as $2.2 billion in 90-day deferrals granted to borrowers early in the pandemic were completely gone as of the end of the third quarter.
Total problem loans, which we define as risk grade 10 and higher, were down slightly to $635 million at the end of the third quarter compared with $666 million at the end of the second quarter.
In the third quarter, we continued making progress toward our goal of mid-single-digit concentration level in the energy portfolio over time, with energy loans falling to 6.5% of our non-PPP portfolio at the end of the quarter.
Our teams continue to analyze the nonenergy portfolio segments that we considered the most at risk from pandemic impacts.
As of the third quarter, those segments are represented by restaurants, hotels and entertainment and sports.
The total of these portfolio segments excluding PPP loans represented $695 million at the end of the third quarter, and our loan loss reserve for these segments was 8.8%.
The credit quality of individual credits in these segments is currently most stable -- mostly stable or better compared to the end of the second quarter.
We reported in the second quarter that we had completed our 25-branch Houston expansion initiative, and we're very pleased with the results.
We've identified eight more locations to open in the coming months, and that process is underway.
Let me update you where we stand through the third quarter with the Houston expansion excluding PPP loans.
Our numbers of new households were 134% of target and represented more than 12,200 new individuals and businesses.
Our loan volumes were 177% of target and represented $371.4 million in outstandings, and about 80% of this represents commercial credits with about 20% consumer.
Deposits surpassed $0.5 billion and were 111% of target.
Commercial deposits accounted for 2/3 of the total.
In the meantime, we're also preparing for our upcoming 28-branch expansion project in the Dallas region, which will kick off with the first new financial center opening early next year and continuing into 2024.
The Dallas expansion will follow our Houston model, and we will employ the lessons learned during our team's successful rollout.
I'll continue to emphasize that the business we are generating through our expansion strategy is consistent with the overall company.
Its profitability is weighted toward small and midsized businesses, but it also has complemented wealth management, insurance, and of course, consumer banking, which continues to see tremendous growth.
For example, through the first six months of this year, we had already surpassed consumer banking's all time annual growth for new customer relationships, which was 12,700 in 2019.
At the end of the third quarter this year, this had risen to 19,974 net new checking customers.
That's already more than 150% of our previous annual record.
We've worked hard to lower barriers to entry for potential customers with improved product offerings and physical distribution.
For example, besides overdraft grace which we introduced in April and Early Pay Day which we announced in July, we also recently established an ATM branding partnership with Cardtronics that resulting -- resulted in us having by far the largest ATM network in the state.
In addition, after over two years of study, we've begun the process of putting in place the infrastructure to add residential mortgages to our suite of consumer real estate products in late 2022.
HELOC, home improvement and purchase money second loans, which has steadily grown to in excess of $1.3 billion.
Utilizing best-in-class technology will allow us to provide Frost level of world-class customer service as we build this portfolio over time in response to customer demand.
Finally, I want to commend our team working on PPP loans.
Nearly 90% of the 32,500 loans or $4.7 billion have already been helped with the loan forgiveness process.
That includes upwards of 97% of the first-round loans from 2020.
Our team continues to put in outstanding work to execute our strategies, whether it's PPP, our expansion projects, or the enhancements we've made to our customer experience.
I believe we've got the best team in the financial services industry.
They are why I continue to be optimistic about our company and our prospects for success.
Looking first at our net interest margin.
Our net interest margin percentage for the third quarter was 2.47%, down 18 basis points from 2.65% reported last quarter.
The decrease was primarily the result of a higher proportion of earning assets being invested in lower-yielding balances at the Fed in the third quarter as compared to the second quarter, and to a lesser extent, the impact of a lower PPP loan volumes and their related yields compared to the prior quarter.
Interest-bearing deposits at the Fed averaged $15.3 billion or about 35% of our average earning assets in the third quarter, up from $13.3 billion or 31% of average earning assets in the prior quarter.
Excluding the impact of PPP loans, our net interest margin percentage would have been 2.27% in the third quarter, down from an adjusted 2.37% for the second quarter, with all of the decrease resulting from the higher level of balances at the Fed in the third quarter.
The taxable equivalent loan yield for the third quarter was 4.16%, down 12 basis points from the previous quarter.
Excluding the impact of PPP loans, the taxable equivalent loan yield would have been 3.74%, down six basis points from the prior quarter.
To add some additional color on our PPP loans, total PPP loans at the end of September were $828 million, down from $1.9 billion at the end of June.
Forgiveness payments received during the third quarter were higher than we had projected, resulting in an acceleration in the recognition of the net deferred fees during the quarter.
At the end of the third quarter, we had only about $11.5 million in net deferred fees remaining to be recognized, and we currently expect about 75% of that to be recognized in the fourth quarter.
Looking at our investment portfolio.
The total investment portfolio averaged $12.5 billion during the third quarter, up about $209 million from the second quarter.
The taxable equivalent yield on the investment portfolio was 3.35% in the third quarter, down one basis point from the second quarter.
The yield on the taxable portfolio which averaged $4.1 billion was 2.03%, up two basis points from the second quarter.
Our municipal portfolio averaged about $8.4 billion during the third quarter, up $230 million from the second quarter, with a taxable equivalent yield of 4.04%, down five basis points from the prior quarter.
At the end of the third quarter, 78% of the municipal portfolio was pre-refunded or PSF-insured.
The duration of the investment portfolio at the end of the third quarter was 4.5 years, up slightly from 4.4 years in the second quarter.
We made investment purchases toward the end of September of approximately $1.5 billion, consisting of about $900 million in MBS agency securities with a yield of about 2%, about $500 million in treasuries yielding 1.07% with the remainder in municipal securities.
Regarding noninterest expense, looking at the full year 2021, we currently expect an annual expense growth rate of around 3% over our 2020 total reported noninterest expenses, which is consistent with our previous guidance.
Regarding the estimates for full year 2021 earnings, given our third quarter results and the recognition of lower PPP fee accretion for the fourth quarter, we currently believe that the current mean of analyst estimates of $6.48 is reasonable.

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q3 earnings per share $1.65.

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