PayPal: who holds your money
PayPal is not a bank. PayPal says customer money is held at Synchrony Bank, with insurance reaching customers as pass-through FDIC insurance at the partner bank, subject to the app's recordkeeping. We read this information in the app's own public disclosure on September 5, 2026, and this page quotes that disclosure below. You can check each partner bank's own page on this site.
PayPal is not a bank. Customer money sits at Synchrony Bank, which has letter A compared with banks of similar size on this site. As of September 5, 2026, FDIC insurance, federal coverage for bank deposits, passes through Synchrony Bank to each customer. Coverage depends on PayPal’s records identifying each customer and is limited to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category.
Partner banks
- Synchrony BankFDIC #27314 · program bank11.9%above the insured limitA100.0
The figure is the share of total bank deposits above the $250,000 federal insurance limit, reported quarterly to the FDIC. High shares are normal for banks holding large app program balances. They do not mean your balance is uninsured: pass-through insurance usually covers customers individually at the partner bank. Across US banks in 2022 to 2026, those above roughly 36% saw large quarterly total deposit declines more often than those below. Most banks above that level saw no such fall. This measures deposit movement and does not predict trouble for any bank.
Disclosure
PayPal Savings is a deposit account provided by Synchrony Bank in which you can deposit funds and subsequently access those funds by transferring them back to your eligible Balance Account.
www.paypal.com · as of September 5, 2026
The user agreement says PayPal Balance funds eligible for pass-through insurance are placed at unnamed 'Program Banks'; only the named PayPal Savings bank is recorded.