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Average fees for withdrawals from out-of-network automatic teller machines, as well as fees for bounced checks, have hit new highs, according to Bankrate.com’s annual checking account study released this week.

The average fee that banks charge noncustomers for using their A.T.M.’s is now $2.40, up 3 percent from last year. (Often, though, your own bank may charge you a fee on top of that, for using a competitor’s A.T.M. The average fee charged by your own bank for going out of network, the survey found, is unchanged, at $1.41. That means you could pay nearly $4, on average, for using another bank’s A.T.M.)

The city with the highest average A.T.M. fees is Denver, at $2.75, followed closely by San Diego, Houston, Seattle and the New York metro area, the survey found. The city with the lowest average A.T.M. fee is Cleveland, at $2.06. Also on the lower end are Minneapolis, Tampa, Chicago and Cincinnati.

The average bounced check fee, meanwhile, is now $30.83, a record. Denver, again, tops the list of cities with the highest bounced check fees, at $33.50. Miami and Houston both top $33, while Dallas and Philadelphia are both just over $32.

The least costly city to bounce a check in is San Francisco, at $27.59, the survey found. Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Minneapolis are all just under $28.

While some banks have instituted monthly fees for debit card use or have been testing them (Chase, for instance, has tested them in Wisconsin), such fees remain relatively rare, the survey found.

Banks are also slowly abandoning “free” checking accounts, although you can still avoid fees by arranging for direct deposit or keeping a minimum balance in your account. For non-interest-bearing accounts, the average monthly fee is $4.37, up from $2.49 last year, and the balance needed to avoid it is averages at $585, more than double the $249 balance from a year ago.

For interest-bearing accounts, the average fee jumped to $14.15 from $13.04 last year. The balance needed to avoid the fee rose to $5,587, from $3,883 — although increasingly, the balance may be spread over other accounts at the bank, not necessarily within the checking account.

What’s your strategy for avoiding A.T.M. and other bank fees?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2d7b7e7c4d0fb62ab8325c270783a3f5