Banks’ income from businesses is up again, rising for the fourth consecutive year, but it seems money’s being saved on the domestic end, with income from fees at home dropping for three years straight.

The Reserve Bank’s annual survey has found that the money lenders collected $7.3 billion in fees from businesses last year, up seven per cent, while income from household fees dropped 0.3 per cent to $4.1 billion.

The survey canvassed around 90 per cent of Australia’s banking sector assets, finding account servicing fees on loans to be the biggest source of fee income, which brought in $3.1 billion.

In a separate survey, the Australian Bankers Association reported that bank fees from households had fallen by 22 per cent, or $1.12 billion over the past three years, to the lowest level since 2004.

Steven Münchenberg, chief executive at ABA said the fall was partly due to customers choosing free or lowest-cost banking products. “Total fees paid continue to fall, even though customers are doing increasing numbers of transactions, which means the cost per transaction has come down.”