When David Wegner went looking for a checking account in January, he was peppered with offers for low-end financial products, including a prepaid debit card with numerous fees, a short-term emergency loan with steep charges, money wire services and check-cashing options.


“I may as well have gone to a payday lender,” said Mr. Wegner, a 36-year-old nursing assistant in Minneapolis, who ended up choosing a local branch of U.S. Bank and avoided the payday lenders, pawnshops and check cashers lining his neighborhood.


Along with a checking account, he selected a $1,000 short-term loan to help pay for his cystic fibrosis medications. The loan cost him $100 in fees, and that will escalate if it goes unpaid.


An increasing number of the nation’s large banks — U.S. Bank, Regions Financial and Wells Fargo among them — are aggressively courting low-income customers like Mr. Wegner with alternative products that can carry high fees. They are rapidly expanding these offerings partly because the products were largely untouched by recent financial regulations, and also to recoup the billions in lost income from recent limits on debit and credit card fees.


Banks say that they are offering a valuable service for customers who might not otherwise have access to traditional banking and that they can offer these products at competitive prices. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new federal agency, said it was examining whether banks ran afoul of consumer protection laws in the marketing of these products.


In the push for these customers, banks often have an advantage over payday loan companies and other storefront lenders because, even though banks are regulated, they typically are not subject to interest rate limits on payday loans and other alternative products.


Some federal regulators and consumer advocates are concerned that banks may also be steering people at the lowest end of the economic ladder into relatively expensive products when lower-cost options exist at the banks or elsewhere.


“It is a disquieting development for poor customers,” said Mark T. Williams, a former Federal Reserve Bank examiner. “They are getting pushed into high-fee options.”


“We look at alternative financial products offered by both banks and nonbanks through the same lens — what is the risk posed to consumers?” said Richard Cordray, director of the bureau. “Practices that make it hard for consumers to anticipate and avoid costly fees would be cause for concern.”


Analysts in the banking industry say that lending to low-income customers, especially those with tarnished credit, is tricky and that banks sometimes have to charge higher rates to offset their risk. Still, in an April survey of prepaid cards, Consumers Union found that some banks’ prepaid cards come with lower fees than nonbank competitors.


While banks have offered short-term loans and some check-cashing services in the past, they are introducing new products and expanding some existing ones. Last month, Wells Fargo introduced a reloadable prepaid card, while Regions Financial in Birmingham, Ala., unveiled its “Now Banking” suite of products that includes bill pay, check cashing, money transfers and a prepaid card.


The Regions package is meant to attract the “growing pay-as-you-go consumer,” said John Owen, the bank’s senior executive vice president for consumer services.


The packages are the latest twist on “cross-selling,” in which lenders compete to win a larger share of customer business with deals on checking, savings accounts and mortgages.


Reaching the so-called unbanked or underbanked population — people who use few, if any, bank services — could be lucrative, industry consultants said. Kimberly Gartner, vice president for advisory services at the Center for Financial Services Innovation, said that such borrowers were a $45 billion untapped market.


The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation estimates that about nine million households in the country do not have a traditional bank account, while 21 million, or 18 percent, of Americans are underbanked.


Mr. Wegner, the U.S. Bank customer, said that once he mentioned that he needed a bank account, an employee started selling him prepaid cards, check cashing and short-term loan options. Mr. Wegner, who makes about $1,200 a month, said that he felt like a second-tier customer.