According to a report published yesterday, Rush Card owner Russell Simmons says his prepaid debit card will soon have a cash advance feature.

The advance will give customers who have enrolled their card in direct deposit the ability to draw cash two days ahead of their next scheduled paycheck or payment.

A spokesperson from Rush says that the service is free of a fee. Rush is going to extend the payment solely on the faith that customers with an existing direct deposit enrollment will have another coming in 48 hours.

The Rush Card is issued by Bancorp Bank. Since customer service at Rush only answers questions if you have an existing card, it is not possible to know the origin of this advance. It may be Bancorp, a different bank, or a non-bank financial institution.

1. Today there are about 11,000 Starbucks in the United States but 19,700 payday loan stores. There were 2,000 payday lending stores in 1996.
2. Lenders made $29 billion in loans last year. (more…)

NetSpend shines: NetSpend Holdings (NTSP) shares closed yesterday at $8.68. The shares closed at $4.02 on August 10th, 2011. In that short time, NetSpend’s share price is up 116 percent. This morning, NetSpend announced an agreement with convenience store chain (more…)

H&R Block owns the tax preparation software company that will channel financial products to tax filers in locations through the United States this year.

RedGear Technologies, based out of Utah, is a subsidiary of H&R Block. Block acquired RedGear a few years ago. RedGear’s primary product is TaxWorks, a tax software package designed to help preparers by offering (more…)

Two small midwestern banks will be providing tax refund transfers during the upcoming tax season. The transfers are being marketed under the name “QIK Funds.” They will be offered by Citizen’s Bank and by New Capital Bank. New Capital is a division of Marshall County State Bank.

The refund transfer is a version of the refund anticipation check (RAC). The checks are (more…)