"It's really amazing. You would think we're giving away $100 bills," said Donald Gibson, senior vice president of the Bank of Greene County, which is offering a set of jumper cables or a set of plastic food-storage containers to anyone opening an account at one of its six branches in Greene and southern Albany counties in New York.

The bank, a subsidiary of Catskill-based Greene County Bancorp Inc., started the promotion last summer to lure traffic to one of its new branches. It worked so well that Gibson said the bank expanded the promotion to all of its branches last year, and subsequently saw a 300 percent jump in new-account activity over the previous non-giveaway year.

Some of the new-style giveaway campaigns do not offer an actual product.

For example, Brough said Zions has run a campaign where it gave away frequent flier miles to people who opened new accounts, and the bank is trying something different right now with a loan sale.

"We're not giving away an item, per se. . . . On our loan sale, we have identified six different loan products, and they have no interest and no payments on those products until next year," he said. "Those who participate — who open up or take out one of these loans during the time of the loan sale campaign — will be entered into a drawing for free interest for an entire year."

Brough said Zions always has done giveaways and will continue to use them.

"But in most respects, it's a way to make a product offering as attractive and as competitive as we can as opposed to trying to lure them in with a toaster," he said.

Mark Chapman, a spokesman for Wells Fargo in Salt Lake City, said that bank just wrapped up a community-based program called "Team Up for our Schools." Through the program, he said, the bank donated up to $30 to a local school district for each new account opened between July 14 and Sept. 13.

The results of the campaign are not yet tabulated, he said, but it appears to have been successful.

"This . . . typifies any kind of promotion we do," Chapman said. "When we do a promotion, we want it to be meaningful, significant. . . . We want the promotion to be great for our customers, and we know if it's great for the communities we serve, it's also great for the customer."

By themselves, checking accounts don't bring in much profit to a bank. But banks know that if they hold someone's checking account, that person likely will shop there first for a home-equity loan, mortgage or car loan.

And on a whole, the giveaways do not cost much for the institutions offering them.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. views promotional items costing more than $10 as interest for most accounts, requiring the owner of the account to pay taxes on it come April 15.