Yesterday, SimpleTuition, a site designed to help students find an ideal student loan, debuted SmarterBank, a student-friendly online bank account that’s powered by The Bancorp Bank.

The Bank

SmarterBank, which offers a free checking account that features online banking, bill pay, and a Visa debit card, is designed to help account holders pay back their student loans. It does this by enabling users to set up payments (one-time or recurring) that feed directly to their student loans. It also features a friends and family contribution function that directly pays down the loan with micropayments.

The Rewards

Another student-friendly aspect of SmarterBank is SmarterBucks, its free rewards program. Through a partnership with merchant rewards program, RewardsNOW, SmarterBucks enables users to accumulate rewards on everyday purchases that are automatically used to make extra payments on their students loans. This summer, it plans to offer special rewards targeted toward students.

A linked savings account is currently in development and is slated for later this year.

To learn more about SimpleTuition, watch its FinovateStartup 2008 demo.