Santa Barbara Bank & Trust has been forced by regulators to stop offering RALs. This is an immediate serious problem for Jackson Hewitt, and anyone else depending on RALs from SBBT. SBBT is trying to sell it's tax division that provides RALs and refund transfer services.
Bloomberg news:
Interesting story, especially given the generally dim view of RAL's taken here and elsewhere.
I saw this today (12/26) from a site purporting to belong to Pacific Capital Bank
"December 26, 2009 "To all transmitters and tax preparers, "As you may have seen in recent public announcements, Pacific Capital Bank (?PCB?) has entered into a letter of intent to sell the E-Filing Financial Service Division of Santa Barbara Bank & Trust (the ?Tax Division?). [...] We anticipate no interruption in service and will continue to maintain a competitive program. Updates will be released and posted here at this website as information becomes available. [...]"
I know both Intuit and H&R Block (the two largest commercial tax prep firms in US) have partner banks they work with for various RAL and prepaid debit card products, and the quote above references Jackson-Hewitt. Is there a list anywhere of the big players (banks) in either the RAC (refund loan) or prepaid debit card (refund direct deposit) industry?
-Mark Bole
HSBC is H&R Block's bank for RAL's and RAC's (the H&R Block bank is not allowed to handle RALs), they stopped dealing with Jackson-Hewitt in 2007. H&R Block bank does handle the prepaid debit cards that are issued. I found the following article quite fascinating (on refund loans and what kind of cut the tax preparer company got):
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