More and more banks are implementing fees on checking accounts, as they search for new sources of revenue.

About 41 percent of U.S. financial institutions didn't offer unconditional, free checking accounts as of January, up 8 percentage points from a year earlier and the highest total since 2002, according to Moebs Services, a research firm, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Banks have become stingier with their accounts since the financial crisis of 2008. At Bank of America, if customers want to avoid fees on its most popular checking account, they must maintain a monthly balance of $1,500 or make a direct deposit of $250 a month, according to The Journal.

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But the fees aren't turning consumer and business customers away from checking accounts. Those accounts held a record sum of just over $1.4 trillion in the third quarter of 2013, up from almost $1.3 trillion a year earlier, the newspaper notes.

Consumers want ready access to more of their money on the chance they lose their job or the economic recovery stalls, experts tell The Journal.

The offers of accounts with no fees to customers who keep a minimum balance or meet other requirements are meant to attract a certain kind of client, says Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.

"The customers they most desire are the mass affluent or emerging affluent households that are candidates for multiple products and services," he tells The Boston Globe.

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