Charles Schwab Corp said on Thursday its quarterly profit fell 34 percent, meeting expectations, as fee waivers and lower trading by clients continued to weigh on the leading U.S. online brokerage.

The company waived $78 million in fees from its money market mutual funds in the third quarter, less than the $80 million it forecast last month.

Schwab's shares declined 2.9 percent in premarket trading.

The company earned $200 million, or 17 cents per share, in the quarter ended September 30, down from $304 million, or 26 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Schwab said client trading activity fell during the quarter, leading to a 4 percent drop in trading revenues.

Revenue dropped 19 percent to $1.011 billion. Analysts on average had expected Schwab to earn 17 cents per share on $1.025 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba, editing by Dave Zimmerman)