A controversial new government agency has its sights set on a consumer bugaboo: checking overdraft fees, CNNMoney reported.

The acting chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Raj Date, said in a speech in Philadelphia that the bureau is going to look at overdraft programs with an eye toward clarifying the cost of free checking accounts.

“With these free checking accounts, much of the costs to the consumer were buried in overdraft fees,” said Date, special adviser to the U.S. treasury secretary on the consumer bureau. “Going forward, the bureau will carefully assess how we can best ensure that the overall market for short-term credit is fair, transparent and competitive.”

Date — who is administering the consumer bureau as it awaits the confirmation of its first director — said that one of the bureau’s first big decisions could be setting guidelines for banks to make sure consumers know what they’re doing when they rack up overdraft fees.

In 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released a report into banking overdraft programs, revealing some little-known practices. The report found that 75 percent of banks automatically enrolled consumers in overdraft protection, often without their knowledge, and the median overdraft fee had been $27.

The report also said that more than 93 percent of all overdraft fees came from a pool of consumers who overdrew their checking accounts at least five times per year, racking up an average of $215 in fees annually.