NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - While banks are offering more checking accounts free of monthly service fees, they are raising other charges and making it harder for customers to avoid them, according to a published report.

USA Today, reporting a study due Tuesday from Bankrate.com, says that raised ATM fees for non-customers, to a record average of $1.60 per withdrawal, up from $1.40 a year ago. However, fewer banks are charging their own customers to use other banks' ATMs, bringing that average charge down to $1.29 from $1.35 a year earlier.

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The newspaper reports that the survey also finds banks charging an average of $27.04 for bouncing a check, also a record high, and they are charging even more to those who bounce more than one check, imposing tiered fee structures.

And the personal finance site's survey also found the minimum balance to avoid fees on interest-bearing checking accounts is higher than ever - an average of $2,465, up 7 percent from the site's survey six months earlier. The average monthly service fee for those who fall below that minimum balance is $10.85, up slightly from $10.81 in the fall.

Bankrate.com also found that the average yield on such accounts is a puny 0.32 percent, even as some money-market and savings accounts now yield more than 4.5 percent. It suggests that many customers would be better off with non-interest bearing checking accounts, which have much lower minimum balance requirements.

"What we're seeing here is a growth in the punitive type of fees," Greg McBride of Bankrate.com told the newspaper. "The fees are really going to get you if you step outside the bounds set by financial institutions."

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