When it comes to banking, don't lose the plot
With all the perks and tools that modern bank accounts offer, it’s easy to forget about one of the main reasons banks were created more than a thousand years ago: to keep your money safe. Back then, “safety” looked like stone walls and well-made padlocks. Today, it comes in the form of FDIC insurance.
4,278 financial institutions are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which includes the vast majority of banks in the United States. Founded in the midst of the Great Depression, the FDIC was created to protect consumers from losing their money in the case of a bank failure. If you’re FDIC insured up to a certain amount, those funds don’t disappear if and when a bank does.
People and businesses alike often overlook details about FDIC insurance because they don’t think a bank failure would ever impact them. The reality couldn’t be more distant.
There have been 574 bank failures in the United States since 2000, with an average of 22 a year. In 2010 alone, 157 banks failed and over $96 billion in consumer funds were put at risk. Just about every dollar that wasn’t FDIC insured evaporated into thin air. While most everyday customers were able to recoup their losses, plenty of businesses and corporations took bigger hits from these collapses.
That’s because the limit for FDIC insurance is $250,000 per depositor, per bank. This is perfectly suitable for the average Joe, but it may not be nearly enough for companies and well-funded startups. So far in 2026, the median series A funding round raised $15 million, while the mean was $24.5 million. While most of those funds will be reinvested back into those startups, shrewd founders will often set some aside in a high-yield savings account to earn idle cash while it’s not in use.
That money isn’t fully safe. If you set $5 million aside and the bank holding it fails, you’ll only get $250,000 back with standard FDIC insurance. At that point, $250k might feel like chump change. So what’s the solution? Do American companies walk around all day with millions of dollars exposed to the elements?
Not all do. Some use sweep networks.
The standard in finance
Slash goes above with better controls, better rewards, and better support for your business.
What’s a sweep network?
Sweep networks can multiply the FDIC’s $250,000 limit by spreading deposits across separate accounts held at interconnected partner banks.² The process is automatic; if your account surpasses $250k, a system “sweeps” the excess amounts into a partner bank account to make sure it’s insured under that account’s ceiling.
From your point of view, the main account balance doesn’t actually change, but a partner bank is responsible for protecting a certain chunk of the overall total. If you have $2 million in your main account, this process would take place across seven partner banks.
Holding $400,000 in a standard FDIC-insured bank account is kind of like bringing your luggage to the airport and handing it to Bag Check with a pile of clothes sitting on top of it. Just bring a second suitcase. In the same way you would bring multiple suitcases to protect your clothes, you should use multiple partner bank accounts to protect your money.
How high can this protection get? Well, while an airport won’t let you bring dozens of suitcases, sweep networks will often let you use dozens of partner accounts.
Column N.A., for example, allows users to spread their deposits across up to 800 partner banks through an arrangement with IntraFi’s sweep network, meaning balances can be insured up to $150 million dollars. This goes far beyond many other banks that utilize sweep networks, such as SoFi and JP Morgan ($3 million max each).
$150 million in FDIC insurance with Slash
While a few million is a better ceiling than $250k, some companies need far more protection: venture-backed startups after a funding round, multi-national corporations with ten figure 10Ks.
You can’t bank directly with Column N.A., as they’re an API-first partner bank for developers and fintech companies. If you want to access hundreds of millions in insurance, try opening a business checking account with Slash.¹ Through a partnership with Column, Slash users can keep balances of more than $150 million insured, meaning large funding rounds don’t have to come with unnecessary risk.
Slash also offers a Treasury account backed by money market investments from BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, which can earn users up to 3.84% annualized yield.⁶ These balances come with Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protection up to $500,000, which is currently the maximum amount.
Whether you have $1,000 or $100,000,000, your funds are FDIC insured in a Slash business account, with banking services provided by Column N.A., Member FDIC.
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