At Alpaca, our mission has always been to open financial services to everyone on the planet. As we grow rapidly alongside our partners and client base, our priority remains building and maintaining their trust.
To reinforce that commitment, we’re proud to announce the expansion of our Excess SIPC Coverage, increasing the protection available to Alpaca’s partners and traders.
Under the expanded Excess SIPC coverage, Alpaca now provides protection for Alpaca Securities LLC (dba Alpaca Clearing) customers up to $75 million in securities and $75 million in cash, with an aggregate limit of $250 million across all customer accounts.
Understanding the Standard SIPC coverage
SIPC, or the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, plays a critical role in maintaining the stability and security of the financial markets. SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities held by a customer at a SIPC-member brokerage firm.
The standard limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash. SIPC coverage ensures that investors' funds and securities are safeguarded up to certain limits, helping to instill confidence and trust in the financial system.
Excess SIPC Coverage
Excess SIPC coverage goes beyond the standard protection provided by SIPC. While SIPC coverage provides a baseline, Excess SIPC Coverage provides an additional layer of security by extending those limits, ensuring customers receive additional protection beyond the standard threshold. As with SIPC, excess coverage does not protect against market losses or declines in investment value.
Alpaca Clearing’s New Excess SIPC Coverage
With this update, our excess SIPC coverage has been increased to:
- Per customer: Up to $75 million in securities and $75 million in cash
- Aggregate limit: $250 million across all Alpaca Clearing customer accounts
This is a significant enhancement over our previous limits, which provided up to $150 million in aggregate coverage, $30 million in securities, and up to $1 million in cash.
Why does this matter?
Today, Alpaca has partnered with hundreds of financial institutions and fintechs across more than 40 countries, supporting over 9 million brokerage accounts. The expansion of Excess SIPC coverage aims to benefit Alpaca’s global ecosystem.
- Our Partners: With enhanced protections in place, Broker API partners can offer more value to their end customers. It also provides greater reassurance to partners while supporting larger balances and growing user bases.
- Fully-disclosed end users of our partners: Customers gain reassurance knowing their cash and securities are protected beyond standard SIPC limits.
- Traders and users of our Trading API: For developers, professional traders, and funds with direct, programmatic access to Alpaca’s brokerage infrastructure, the added protection gives reassurance when trading at scale.
“As Alpaca scales and serves more traders and partners worldwide, protecting customer assets remains our top priority,” said Yoshi Yokokawa, Co-Founder and CEO of Alpaca. “By expanding our Excess SIPC coverage, we are focused on surpassing industry standards to ensure Alpaca’s brokerage infrastructure remains the most trusted gateway to US markets.“
Contact Alpaca
About Alpaca
Alpaca is a US-headquartered, self-clearing broker-dealer and a global leader in brokerage infrastructure APIs providing access to stocks, ETFs, options, fixed income, and crypto. Alpaca delivers embeddable finance solutions for tokenization, fully paid securities lending, high-yield cash, 24/5 trading, Shariah-compliant investing and more. Today, Alpaca powers over 9 million brokerage accounts across hundreds of fintechs and institutions in 40+ countries with over $320M in funding.
SIPC and Excess SIPC Protection Alpaca Securities LLC is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash). An explanatory brochure is available upon request via telephone at (202) 371-8300 or at www.sipc.org.
Alpaca Securities LLC has purchased an additional insurance policy through Lloyd's of London to supplement SIPC protection known as Excess SIPC Coverage. The additional insurance becomes available to customers in the event that SIPC limits are exhausted. The excess coverage provides protection for any Alpaca Securities customer up to $75 million in securities and $75 million in cash, and is covered at an aggregate limit of $250 million across all Alpaca Securities customer accounts. Similar to SIPC protection, this additional insurance does not protect against a loss in the market value of securities.
The content of this blog is for general informational purposes only.
All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy will achieve its objectives. Keep in mind that while diversification may help spread risk, it does not assure a profit, or protect against loss. There is always the potential of losing money when you invest in securities, or other financial products. Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing.
Options trading is not suitable for all investors due to its inherent high risk, which can potentially result in significant losses. Please read Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before investing.
Fractional share trading allows a customer to buy and sell fractional share quantities and dollar amounts of certain securities. Fractional share trading presents unique risks and is subject to particular limitations that you should be aware of before engaging in such activity. See Alpaca Customer Agreement at https://alpaca.markets/disclosures for more details.
Fixed income securities can experience a greater risk of principal loss when interest rates rise. These investments are also subject to additional risks, including credit quality fluctuations, market volatility, liquidity constraints, prepayment or early redemption, corporate actions, tax implications, and other influencing factors.
Orders placed outside regular trading hours (9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET) may experience price fluctuations, partial executions, or delays due to lower liquidity and higher volatility. Orders not designated for extended hours execution will be queued for the next trading session. Additionally, fractional trading may be limited during extended hours. For more details, please review Alpaca Extended Hours & Overnight Trading Risk Disclosure.
Alpaca does not make any representation that its products or services are Shariah-compliant. Customers are solely responsible for determining whether any offering meets their own Shariah requirements.
Please read Important Risk Disclosures With Respect To Participating In Fully Paid Securities Lending Transactions carefully before deciding whether to participate in lending Fully Paid Securities or agreeing to enter into a Master Securities Lending Agreement with Alpaca Securities LLC.
These disclosures describe important characteristics of, and risks associated with engaging in, securities-lending transactions.
Alpaca Securities offers a cash management program pursuant to the FDIC Bank Sweep. Customer funds are treated differently and are subject to separate regulatory regimes depending on whether customer funds are held in their brokerage account or within the FDIC Bank Sweep. Alpaca Securities is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash). The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures up to $250,000 per deposit against the failure of an FDIC member bank. Customer funds held in brokerage accounts are SIPC insured, but are not eligible for FDIC insurance coverage. Funds maintained in the FDIC Bank Sweep are intended to be eligible for pass-through FDIC insurance coverage but are not covered by SIPC. FDIC insurance does not protect against the failure of Alpaca, Alpaca Securities, or their affiliates, nor against malfeasance by their employees. Program banks that participate in the FDIC Bank Sweep are not members of SIPC, and therefore, funds held in the Program are not SIPC protected. Please see alpaca.markets/disclosures for important additional disclosures regarding Alpaca Securities brokerage offering, as well as FDIC Bank Sweep terms and conditions.
Alpaca's Instant Tokenization Network is owned and developed by AlpacaDB, Inc. and Alpaca Crypto LLC.
Additional geographic restrictions may apply for tokenization services based on local regulatory requirements. Neither Alpaca Crypto LLC nor Alpaca Securities LLC are the issuer of, nor directly involved in, the tokenization of any assets. Tokenization is performed by a third party. Tokenized assets do not represent direct equity ownership in any underlying company or issuer. Instead, tokenized assets generally provide economic exposure to the equity securities of an underlying issuer. As such, holders of tokenized assets have no voting rights, dividend entitlements, or legal claims to the underlying company shares or any residual assets in the event of the underlying company’s liquidation or insolvency, unless explicitly stated otherwise. All investments involve risk. For more information, please see our Tokenization Risk Disclosure.
Securities brokerage services are provided by Alpaca Securities LLC (dba "Alpaca Clearing"), member FINRA/SIPC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AlpacaDB, Inc. Technology and services are offered by AlpacaDB, Inc.
Cryptocurrency services are made available by Alpaca Crypto LLC ("Alpaca Crypto"), a FinCEN registered money services business (NMLS # 2160858), and a wholly-owned subsidiary of AlpacaDB, Inc. Alpaca Crypto is not a member of SIPC or FINRA. Cryptocurrencies are not stocks and your cryptocurrency investments are not protected by either FDIC or SIPC. Please see the Disclosure Library for more information.
This is not an offer, solicitation of an offer, or advice to buy or sell securities or cryptocurrencies or open a brokerage account or cryptocurrency account in any jurisdiction where Alpaca Securities or Alpaca Crypto, respectively, are not registered or licensed, as applicable.
