It seems that Capital One’s customers have become better at paying their bills on time and not going over their limits. As CEO Richard Fairbank put it on a conference call, “we continue to see customers behaving defensively in the economic environment.”(One assumes that “defensively” is banker-speak for “responsibly.”)

As the reality of the harsh economic climate continues to hit consumers, we have apparently begun to wisen up and take better care of our finances. Paying more attention to credit card limits and payments is a good first step. Personally, I have also (mostly) eliminated my morning Starbucks run and am snowflaking the savings to more quickly pay down student loan debt.

Of course, credit card companies have already raised rates (sometimes substantially) on old customers and tightened their terms for new customers. Considering that service fees accounted for $19.1 billion of industry revenue in 2008, one wonders what future cost-cutting and fee-raising measures are in store for cardholders.

The Washington Post yesterday reported on a topic we’ve covered in depth: increased banking fees.

Customers are paying more to maintain a checking account and withdraw cash from an out-of-system ATM, and when they bounce a check. To make up for declining revenue, many banks are boosting fees and are requiring higher minimum balances for many accounts.

The institutions also have made it easier for customers to spend more than is in their accounts — and then hit them with substantial fees, a practice so vexing to consumer advocates that the Federal Reserve is thinking of regulating it.

Bank revenue has plummeted on the back of foreclosures and rising credit card delinquencies. Now Congress has passed a law cracking down on arbitrary and excessive credit card fees. So the banks have been fighting back.

And the way banks and credit unions “fight back” is by raising fees on customers, particularly for easily-avoidable errors such as ATM and overdraft charges:

Bank of America this year raised the maximum number of times customers can get hit with overdraft fees from five a day to 10. On top of that, it began charging a one-time fee of $35 if the account remains in the negative for more than five days.

[...]

In a study of fees last year, Bankrate.com found that the average bounced check fee rose 2.5 percent from 2007 to nearly $30. The average ATM surcharge in 2008 was up more than 10 percent to almost $2.

Of course, there are a few steps you can take to avoid these sorts of problems:

• Make sure your checkbook is balanced and you know how much money is in your checking account.
• There’s no reason (other than laziness) that you should have to use another bank’s ATM most of the time.
• If your brick-and-mortar bank requires a high minimum balance in order to qualify for free checking, consider switching to an online bank with free no-minimum checking accounts such as Charles Schwab or E*Trade.