Column | Are banks safe under Trump 2.0? Readers ask about keeping cash at home. (2025)

However, there is growing anxiety about the safety of our financial institutions.

Here’s why: The independence of the federal agencies charged with protecting our funds is being undermined.

Last week, President Donald Trump fired Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, the Democratic board members of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which supervises and insures more than 4,400 federally insured credit unions with $1.78 trillion of insured shares and deposits and 142.3 million members, according to its most recent report.

“This is the latest in a string of actions by the Trump Administration to subvert the law and undermine financial regulators that keep Americans’ money safe,” Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, said in a statement following the firings.

Only one board member remains: Kyle Hauptman, the Republican appointed by Trump in 2020. He is now the chair.

“If a President can fire an NCUA Board member at any time, how will we maintain public trust in our nation’s financial services’ regulatory system?” Harper asked in a statement on LinkedIn, calling the move “ill-conceived and politically motivated.”

Meanwhile, a federal hiring freeze and staff reductions have left the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shorthanded. In January, the administration rescinded job offers to more than 200 new bank examiners — the employees who monitor the financial health of banks to reduce the risk of a failure.

One concerned reader emailed me asking about how I “would advise about protecting assets in banks.”

Other readers have raised similar concerns over the last several weeks about the safety of their deposits in banks and credit unions.

It’s not a laughing matter. Here’s what I’ve said.

You are not being paranoid.

On one family vacation to the beach, my sister slipped in a few feet of water near the water’s edge. As a non-swimmer, she was so frightened by the fall that she panicked and couldn’t regain her balance.

It’s like that with Trump’s policies, which have knocked the economy out of balance. His firing of officials on independent boards and at certain watchdog agencies raises concerns over whether the rules governing the safety of insured accounts will be just as easily dismissed.

Given the numerous lawsuits challenging the moves of Trump and his political appointees, you’re not irrational to wonder about the safety of your insured bank deposits.

But for now, I have no reason to believe you’re better off keeping vast amounts of cash at your home.

If it makes you feel better, get a safe that’s waterproof and fire-resistant, and keep a few hundred dollars for an emergency in case, for instance, a storm knocks out power and you can’t use a credit or debit card.

But if you’re truly in a panic about the federal protection of your deposits, let your congressional representative know how you feel. That’s better than keeping your money under your mattress.

FDIC and NCUA Insurance protection is still in place.

The FDIC insures deposit products, including savings and checking accounts, money market deposit accounts, and certificates of deposit.

If you’re unsure whether your money is federally insured, use the FDIC’s tool, the Electronic Deposit Insurance Estimator. It helps consumers figure out on a per-bank basis how much of their money, if any, exceeds coverage limits.

Insurance works by ownership categories. The standard coverage is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category.

NCUA protects members’ share accounts at federally insured credit unions. It’s similar to the deposit insurance coverage provided by the FDIC. Members can calculate the amount of insured coverage by using the NCUA’s Share Insurance Estimator at MyCreditUnion.gov.

No one has ever lost a single dollar of insured deposits at a federally insured bank or credit union. Notice, though, that the key point is insured deposits.

Non-deposit products are not covered.

It’s important to note that the FDIC and NCUA don’t cover non-deposit products — even if they were purchased at a federally insured institution. These include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, insurance products and crypto assets.

There is a nonprofit corporation, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, created under the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970, which covers securities (or stocks), mutual funds, and bonds. But it’s not the equivalent of the FDIC or NCUA for securities.

Instead, the SIPC helps you recover missing cash or securities if your brokerage firm goes under. It won’t cover losses if, for example, your investments decline — as many retirement accounts have because of Trump’s trade war.

The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash. However, you can have separate coverage for different account registrations at the same firm. For instance, individual, joint and IRA accounts are typically treated as distinct for the purposes of SIPC coverage.