People have a lot of questions about the OCC’s directive to make HSBC end their Settlement Products Agreement with H&R Block.

Here are a few:

• Why did the OCC do it?
• Will the FDIC do the same thing?
• Will H&R Block be able to come up with a substitute means of helping their customers settle the cost of their tax preparation fees?

HSBC reports that the OCC required them to terminate their contract, known as the HSBC Settlement Products Program, on Christmas Eve. Block’s 8-K reports that the OCC directive required HSBC to immediately stop providing any form of refund anticipation loans and refund (more…)

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (The “OCC”) directed HSBC to stop providing funds for refund anticipation lending.

H&R Block says that HSBC has ended its contract to provide the tax preparation firm with refund anticipation loans. The agreement cancels all of the tax settlement products offered at the Block stores through HSBC. This includes (more…)

Wells Fargo extended its line of credit to Jackson Hewitt on Friday.

In an 8-K released after the close of trading, Jackson Hewitt announced that Wells agreed to renew their commitment to the tax preparation franchise. The new loan includes a few interesting provisions:

• At any time, Wells can demand that Jackson Hewitt repay $25 million at any time between April 4th and (more…)

More home buyers are seeking mortgage loans backed by FHA guarantees.

I have been looking at lending patterns in my own community – Durham, North Carolina – and the 2009 numbers paint an interesting picture that suggests a dual marketplace. One group – white and Asian borrowers – continues to eschew the FHA program in favor of conventional loans. Another, made up almost entirely of African-American borrowers, is turning to the FHA program. What is more interesting is the extent to which the sudden switch is unaffected by borrower income. Even well-off African-Americans are flocking to FHA.

I ran a chi-square that sorted borrowers by their race or ethnicity and by their incomes. Incomes were separated (more…)