Seguro de depósitos FDIC até 250 000 $ por depositante por banco segurado e por categoria de propriedade. Para bancos autorizados, a cobertura é direta. Para fintechs que operam ao abrigo de um modelo de banco parceiro (BaaS), a cobertura é "pass-through" (por transparência) e aplica-se ao banco parceiro, não à fintech.
Importante. Importante: uma fintech NÃO é um banco. A cobertura FDIC pass-through exige que (a) o banco parceiro esteja segurado pela FDIC, (b) os registos de conta identifiquem o depositante, e (c) os depósitos sejam mantidos numa conta de custódia que cumpra as regras FDIC pass-through. Verifique o banco parceiro através da ferramenta FDIC BankFind antes de confiar na cobertura. Se mantiver fundos em várias fintechs que partilham o mesmo banco parceiro, o seu limite de 250 000 $ é agregado entre elas.
Fonte primária: 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.
A cobertura FDIC por transparência (pass-through) aplica-se por banco parceiro, não por fintech. Se mantiver fundos em várias fintechs tipo Chime que partilham o mesmo banco parceiro, o seu limite FDIC de 250 000 $ é agregado entre esses saldos. As detenções em cripto, o numerário de corretagem a aguardar investimento e as linhas de proteção contra descobertos NÃO estão segurados pela FDIC — verifique o tipo de produto antes de assumir cobertura. O Reg E confere direitos de responsabilidade limitada por transferências eletrónicas não autorizadas comunicadas dentro do prazo legal.