richard hunt president of the consumer banker's association says the move is natural. they offered checking accounts for free, too, but can't afford to because of the legislative and regulatory pressure, not to mention the high tech investment. some customers could embrace small fees. >> if bank of america charges me $1 to deposit a $49 check, but if they charge $5, i'm sorry, i definitely will not use it. >> reporter: others would change the way they bank entirely. >> i would probably change banks, if, you know, bank of america wasn't doing that and chase was, i would move my money. >> reporter: each month, millions of checks are digitally deposited at big u.s. financial institutions and the number of non-traditional bankers surged 55% in the last year. no doubt banks have a captive audience, always on the go and on their phones. now time is money and saving time could cost you money, too. >> i do it solely for the convenience and actually, it's not very often. if they started to charge me for it, enough is enough. >> reporter: for "nightly business report" i'm kayla.

but richard hunt, with the consumer bankers association, says people have options, including being responsible not use overdraft protection. both join me here in washington. look, i understand we want to be protected and the banks have a right to charge for that. but how much? how much is the right to charge? this is an enormous amount of money. >> this is a product the consumer wants. they have to opt in. if they don't want to be charged for an overdraft, do not accept the product. so 80% of our banks' membership do not want overdraft, but 20% do. and we provide a service to make sure their bills are paid on time, so when they go to the grocery store, get gas for the car, they have to make sure their bill will be paid. this gives them a service. we don't charge them without providing a service. >> yeah, susan, that's all true. >> the problem is that what our research shows is that actually 54% of consumers who had kroefr drafts in the last year, the survey we did, they didn't think they had actually opted in. but yet they overdrafted. so what it says is, there's a ton of confusion out there a