Money transmitter

A money transmitter is a business licensed to move money on your behalf — the US cousin of Europe’s e-money institution. It’s regulated and bonded, but it is not a bank, which is the part that matters for your protections.

Why it matters: the license decides what happens if the company fails. A chartered bank’s deposits are usually covered by FDIC insurance up to a limit; a money transmitter’s are not, so a balance held there has no government backstop if the firm goes under. Plenty of cards are issued through these entities safely — but “issued by a regulated company” is not the same promise as “FDIC-insured.”

For example: ether.fi Cash is issued by Third National, a Puerto Rico-licensed money transmitter, under a license from Visa — not a chartered bank, and no FDIC insurance is claimed. As of June 2026. In ether.fi’s case the practical impact is softer than usual, because the card is self-custodial: your funds live in your own vault, not in the issuer’s account, so the issuer never holds a spendable balance for you to lose.