What's more, February and March are historically the lowest months for OD transactions because the consumer is trying to recover from the holiday season which can be hard on the wallet and purse, he said. So, with the reduction of net pay right after the holidays, February and March moved up a month sooner making the first quarter of 2013 bad.”

Another factor was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's decision over regulation on overdrafts. Pending CFPB chief Richard Cordray decided to stretch out potential overdraft regulations for up to two years to provide more study time on the issue.

“This threw banks and credit unions into a quandary over how to position price changes on overdrafts,” said Moebs, “So most financial institutions decided to keep the prices the same while the consumer was overdrawing less.”

The median national overdraft charge is $29.

Also influencing OD revenue to a lesser extent was marketing moves by financial institutions to give waivers on the first six OD transactions in a year, to forgo small overdraft balances of less than $5.

Moebs suggested that credit unions and banks can continue to reduce fees to increase revenues.

“Wal-Mart took a small family business to the giant in the retail business by reducing price and selling more,” he said. “Our data shows financial institutions that lower prices to help the consumer reduce fees actually increase revenue from having more volume of new checking accounts and transactions.”

About 30% of the 135 million checking account users are “under banked” or have a FICO score of less than 600, which remains unchanged from 20 years ago.

“This seems to tell us the consumer and small business person needs a financial safety net and wants overdraft service,” Moebs said. “Banks, thrifts and credit unions also appear ready to provide the OD safety net, hopefully in a transparent, low price way, free of market restrictions.”