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Republic Bancorp, embroiled in a fight with regulators over refund loans, plans to stay in the tax business no matter the outcome, according to CEO Steve Trager. Trager made the comments at a presentation at InvestKY, an equity investment conference held earlier this month.

Slides outliningTrager's presentation were made posted on the SEC site, but a webcast of his exact remarks was not available on InvestKY's website. However, he was quoted by publications covering the event as stating that the bank would stay in the tax business even if it lost its battle with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The FDIC is seeking a $2 million civil monetary penalty from the company and to halt its offering refund anticipation loans. The FDIC claims that after the Internal Revenue Service decided not to provide the direct deposit indicator Republic's decision to provide RALs anyway constituted unsafe banking practices. Republic, which is appealing the decision, said that it had tightened its underwriting criteria and had substantially reduced loan losses despite the lack of the indicator.

Republic is claiming harassment by the FDIC and filed a lawsuit in March challenging the agency.