Webster Financial Corp. saw a slight dip in its first quarter earnings from the year-ago period, booking $46.5 million in profits compared with $46.9 million last year, but the holding company for Webster Bank cheered new deposits it credited to its recent Boston expansion, as well as double-digit loan growth.

“The Boston expansion is at or ahead of plan on every important metric, having recently crossed $100 million in new deposits,” Chairman and CEO James C. Smith said on a conference call to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings.

Though Webster had established a branch in Boston’s Financial District in 2009, it made serious inroads into Boston early this year when it picked up the 17 branches Citibank left when it departed the Boston area last fall.

That expansion cost the bank nearly $6 million, or almost 4 cents per share, in this most recent quarter, but Smith said that negative financial impact should diminish gradually over the next three quarters and should become accretive to earnings mid-2017.

Core revenue increased 10.3 percent to $240.1 million and included net interest income of $176.2 million. Deposits grew 6.7 percent year-over-year to $18.7 billion.

Total loans increased 11.1 percent year-over-year to $15.9 billion. Over that timeframe, commercial, residential mortgage, commercial real estate and consumer loans increased by $531.9 million, $515 million, $383.8 million and $157.4 million, respectively.

Nonperforming loans stayed relatively flat from the year-ago period, totaling $140.7 million or 0.89 percent of total loans. Total paying nonperforming loans were $43.7 million, compared with $53.8 million a year ago.

Webster also beefed up its provision for loan losses, setting aside $15.6 million, compared with $9.8 million a year ago. Company leadership explained that as due in part to one relationship with a services company that they said had been “challenged over the last several years” and that they didn’t believe that trouble spot reflected any underlying trends that should be cause for concern.

The company’s net interest margin inched up a basis point to 3.11 percent. Webster’s efficiency ratio was 61.29 percent, but management said on the call that it hoped to push it back down to around 60 percent by the year’s end. Excluding the Boston acquisition, company management said it would have totaled around 58.92 percent.