FDIC deposit insurance up to $250,000 per depositor per insured bank, per ownership category. For chartered banks, cover is direct. For fintechs operating under a partner-bank (BaaS) model, cover is "pass-through" and applies at the partner bank, not at the fintech.
Important. Important: a fintech is NOT a bank. FDIC pass-through coverage requires (a) the partner bank to be FDIC-insured, (b) account records to identify the depositor, and (c) deposits to be held in a custodial account that meets FDIC pass-through rules. Verify the partner bank against the FDIC BankFind tool before relying on the cover. If you hold funds at multiple fintechs that share the same partner bank, your $250,000 limit aggregates across them.
Primary source: 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.
FDIC pass-through coverage is per partner bank, not per fintech. If you hold funds at multiple Chime-style fintechs that share the same partner bank, your $250,000 FDIC limit aggregates across those balances. Crypto holdings, brokerage cash awaiting investment, and overdraft-protection lines are NOT FDIC-insured — verify product type before assuming cover. Reg E provides limited-liability rights for unauthorised electronic-fund transfers when reported within the statutory window.