Apparently the president of the SIPC stated that Robinhood didn't contact the SIPC before making their announcement. The SIPC president Stephen Harbeck is on record saying that "SIPC protects cash that is deposited with a brokerage firm for one limited purpose... the purpose of purchasing securities. Cash deposited for other reasons would not be protected. SIPC does not protect checking and savings accounts since the money has not been deposited for a protected purpose."
He later stated that the SEC would need to take the lead on clarifying the matter though.
I have a one-year emergency fund with Robinhood that is invested in index funds (secondary emergency fund as the primary emergency fund is in cash). I think I'll keep my primary emergency fund in the PNC high yield savings account for now until all that gets worked out.
Robinhood's checking page says "Robinhood Checking and Savings is an added feature to existing Robinhood accounts and is not a separate account or a bank account."
I have not dug thought this specific offering but here is how it works in general it works this way:
Account has 3 parts:
1. Marketable securities -- value is NOT insured.
2. Cash on hand -- value IS ensured.
3. Money market fund -- value is NOT insured.
(3) may or may not be offered and if (3) is offered it has to be elected by the account holder. Money cannot flow from (1) to (3) or from (3) to (1) bypassing (2) due to securities regulations -- one cannot pay for one security with another security, a settled cash must be used.
If the APY is on (2) they will get killed by the fatwallet/slickdeals crowd. If the APY is on (3) it is more complicated but debit/check transactions against (3) are very expensive to clear so I don't quite see what the play is.
This are cash balances, not money market funds or any other funds.