I was reading about the scam fin-tech company, Yotta Bank, a financial services company masquerading as a bank. Unlike banks and credit unions, there is no government-backed insurance or supervision of bank assets in financial services companies compared to banks – even when they claim such backing. It is really essential to confirm a bank is a bank by searching the FDIC BankFind Suite, especially when putting money in a high-interest internet-only savings account – which makes sense as most retail banks and credit unions offer very low rates due to the high cost of offering in-person service. Credit unions offer similiar banking opportunities to banks, you can verify they are insured like an FDIC Bank through the NCUA Credit Union Locator service. People expect the government to protect them, but the government doesn’t always do that, so check yourself.
For going on 20-years now, I have had an high-interest savings account. It has changed hands several times since I opened it, but before opening it, I confirmed with the FDIC BankFind Suite that it’s an FDIC insurance was legimate and that it was a legitimate bank, even though it is associated with a large banking insitution. It has rolled over into a couple of different banks since then, and just recently I found out the bank name had changed again, and I promptly went to FDIC BankFind Suite to make sure my savings was still in a legitimate bank. While I doubt it would be legal for a FDIC insured banking institution to transfer funds from an FDIC account to a non-FDIC account, it is always good to regularly confirm such details, especially when the bank you are dealing with does not have a physical branch locally.
