Seguro de depósitos FDIC hasta 250.000 $ por depositante por banco asegurado y por categoría de propiedad. Para bancos con licencia, la cobertura es directa. Para fintechs que operan bajo modelo de banco socio (BaaS), la cobertura es "pass-through" (por transparencia) y aplica en el banco socio, no en la fintech.
Importante. Importante: una fintech NO es un banco. La cobertura FDIC pass-through requiere que (a) el banco socio esté asegurado por la FDIC, (b) los registros de cuenta identifiquen al depositante, y (c) los depósitos se mantengan en una cuenta de custodia que cumpla las normas FDIC pass-through. Verifique al banco socio con la herramienta FDIC BankFind antes de confiar en la cobertura. Si mantiene fondos en varias fintechs que comparten el mismo banco socio, su límite de 250.000 $ se agrega entre ellas.
Fuente primaria: https://banks.data.fdic.gov/bankfind-suite/bankfind
A real bank
SoFi Technologies, Inc. closed its acquisition of Golden Pacific Bancorp in February 2022 and now operates SoFi Bank, N.A., a national bank chartered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Unlike the Chime / Cash App partner-bank model, SoFi is the bank. Deposit accounts are FDIC-insured directly, with no sponsor in the middle.
FDIC vs SIPC: where the line is
SoFi sells two product families that look similar inside the same app but sit under different protection regimes:
- SoFi Checking, Savings, and Money. Deposit accounts at SoFi Bank, N.A. — FDIC-insured to $250,000 per depositor per ownership category. SoFi also offers a sweep program that distributes large balances across partner banks for higher aggregate FDIC coverage; verify your enrolment status before relying on it.
- SoFi Invest (brokerage and crypto). A separate Member SIPC broker-dealer entity. SIPC protects securities and brokerage cash up to $500,000 (with a $250,000 cash sub-limit) against broker-dealer failure — not against market loss. Crypto held in SoFi's brokerage is not SIPC-protected.
The non-obvious failure mode: a chunk of cash you've moved to SoFi Invest and not yet deployed into securities is brokerage cash, not a deposit. Different rules, different ceiling, different counterparty.
The Galileo and Technisys infrastructure layer
SoFi also owns Galileo (acquired 2020) and Technisys (acquired 2022) — the BaaS and core-banking platforms that power large parts of the US fintech stack. This makes SoFi structurally different from a traditional small national bank: it is both a chartered bank and a banking-as-a-service infrastructure provider. Most public-company disclosure cycles since 2022 have flagged this dual model as a concentration question, not a depositor-safety one.
Public-company financial transparency
SoFi is listed on NASDAQ under SOFI, which means quarterly 10-Q and annual 10-K filings, regulated audits, and an analyst-questioned earnings call every three months. Privately-held US neobanks (including Chime as of editorial date) do not face the same disclosure cadence. For a depositor evaluating the institution's health independently of the FDIC backstop, public-company status is a meaningful signal.
Verdict
SoFi Bank, N.A. is as safe as any US national bank for FDIC-covered deposits — direct charter, no partner-bank middleman, public-company transparency. The watch-out is product-type literacy: don't conflate FDIC-insured Checking / Savings with SIPC-protected SoFi Invest, and don't treat brokerage cash as a deposit.
La cobertura FDIC por transparencia (pass-through) se aplica por banco socio, no por fintech. Si mantiene fondos en varias fintechs tipo Chime que comparten el mismo banco socio, su límite FDIC de 250.000 $ se agrega entre esos saldos. Las tenencias cripto, el efectivo de corretaje a la espera de inversión y las líneas de protección por sobregiro NO están aseguradas por la FDIC — verifique el tipo de producto antes de asumir cobertura. Reg E otorga derechos de responsabilidad limitada por transferencias electrónicas no autorizadas notificadas dentro del plazo legal.