Column, the banking infrastructure company co-founded by William Hockey, has launched four new products spanning stablecoins, card issuing, global banking and multicurrency accounts — and the move could quietly change how the digital dollars in your crypto wallet connect to everyday bank payments.
By David Chen | September 17, 2026
The Hook: One Bank, One Integration, Billions Already Flowing
Announced by Hockey on Sept. 16, the rollout completes what he described as a years-long effort to build the underlying components that technology companies need to create financial products without stitching together separate banks, payment orchestrators and processing providers. According to the company, each of the new services is already processing billions of dollars for fintech companies including Ramp, Brex, Bilt, Mercury, Slash and Kapital.
For regular investors, the most interesting piece is the stablecoin infrastructure. In plain terms, a stablecoin like USDC or USDT is a digital token designed to hold a steady value of one U.S. dollar. Until now, moving between those tokens and real bank money usually required middlemen. Column’s new product lets businesses receive and send USDC and USDT, convert them into U.S. dollars, and connect to domestic and international payment rails — all around the clock, through one platform.
How It Actually Works: The Mongolia Example
Column laid out a concrete example of what the new stack can do. Imagine a company receives USDC from a customer in Mongolia. With a few API calls, it can instantly convert those tokens into U.S. dollars and split the payment: part of the money goes to a U.S. community bank through FedNow — the Federal Reserve’s instant payment system — while another portion is converted into euros and sent through SWIFT, the traditional international messaging network. Hockey said the whole process can be completed within seconds.
- 24/7 conversion — USDC and USDT swap into U.S. dollars at any hour, unlike bank cut-off times.
- No intermediary — the stablecoin functionality was built directly into Column’s own banking core.
- Split routing — one incoming payment can fan out across FedNow, SWIFT and stablecoin rails simultaneously.
The Bigger Picture: Stablecoins Are Becoming Payment Plumbing
The launch lands as stablecoins push deeper into mainstream payments and banking. Paymentscan data cited by RedotPay in August showed cumulative stablecoin card spending surpassing 10.9 billion USD, with monthly spending crossing 1 billion USD for the first time in July — a sharp jump from roughly 339.4 million USD a year earlier. Visa, meanwhile, said earlier this month that more than 160 stablecoin card programs are now live across its network.
Column’s second new product leans into that trend. The company has sponsored card programs for years, but it has now built its own issuer processor from the ground up. That means clients can create debit, credit and even stablecoin-backed cards on the Mastercard and Visa networks while getting the banking relationship, processing layer and capital from a single integration — instead of assembling three separate vendors.
The timing also matters for the wider market. Bitcoin is trading around 76,600 USD after a volatile week, while Ethereum sits near 2,464 USD and Solana has reclaimed the 101 USD level, according to CoinGecko data. When payment giants build stablecoin rails regardless of price swings, it signals that digital dollar infrastructure is being treated as long-term business, not a crypto-cycle bet.
The Core Conflict: Fast Tokens, Slow Local Payouts
There is still a catch, and it is one every stablecoin user should understand. Gravity Team CEO Mārtiņš Beņķītis argued in August that stablecoin transfers still depend on local liquidity, banking connections and payout infrastructure when recipients need spendable domestic currency. In other words, the token may move in seconds, but getting it into someone’s local bank account as usable money can still be the slow part.
That is precisely the gap Column says it is closing. By combining stablecoin conversion, dollar accounts and local payment rails inside one banking stack, the company claims it can compress steps that previously required an intermediary provider. Competitors are racing in the same direction: Ramp, one of the fintechs named as a Column client, launched Solana-powered stablecoin accounts in July that let businesses pay vendors in more than 140 countries with settlement in over 40 local currencies.
What This Means For You
If you hold stablecoins, the practical takeaway is simple: the gap between “crypto money” and “bank money” keeps shrinking. Faster, cheaper conversion between USDC, USDT and traditional dollars means fewer trapped funds, shorter settlement waits and a more useful digital dollar — whether you are paying a freelancer abroad or just moving your own savings between wallets and bank accounts.
The consolidation is also worth watching. When a single regulated banking platform can issue cards, hold stablecoins and route payments globally, the fees and friction that middlemen once charged come under pressure. For investors, that supports the long-term thesis behind stablecoin issuers and payment-focused infrastructure — even on days when headline crypto prices grab all the attention.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
24/7 USDC to dollars with no middleman is the killer feature here. every other crypto banking product still closes at 5pm friday
the split routing across FedNow, SWIFT and stablecoin rails in one payment is the part everyone will sleep on. that is real plumbing
the mongolia example is what sold me. usdc in, part out via fednow to a community bank, part as euros over swift, in seconds instead of days
the mongolia example was doing a lot of work until you realize most SMBs never touch raw stablecoin rails, they get it wrapped in some fintech UI
10.9 billion in stablecoin card spending and my bank still needs 3 business days for a wire. cool cool cool
treasury teams literally build their week around wire cutoffs. 10.9 billion in stablecoin card spend proves the demand was always there, banks just never had to care
production uptime with billions flowing is not nothing, but every one of those fintechs is US based and business hours. the weekend depeg scenario is still untested
the stablecoin leg settles onchain 24/7 regardless. the bank side closing at 5 is the bottleneck, not the rails themselves
pass-through insurance is literally what the charter exists for. the weekend depeg exam everyone demands gets graded by the Fed instead of a fintech support line
fair point but the fed grades it in slow motion. a usdc depeg resolves in hours, fed reports arrive quarters later. someone still eats the gap in between
Mercury and Brex already pushing billions through this stack means the uptime test already happened in production. A bank charter wrapped around stablecoin rails is a quiet monster
production uptime sure, but nobody has stress tested instant conversion during a USDC depeg event. thats the actual exam
The depeg exam already happened in March 2023. Circle held, the Fed wire outage was what actually broke that weekend, not the stablecoin.
circle held in 2023 because they got the 3am wire through. column is trying to make that wire unnecessary, which is the part people keep missing
card issuing uptime and stablecoin conversion legs are different reliability tiers tho. billions in card volume says a lot less about the new rails
split routing is the sleeper feature. usdc in, part out over FedNow, part over SWIFT, one api call. treasury teams waste entire weeks on exactly this today
William Hockey building direct USDC/USDT conversion into a bank license is genuinely underrated. no middleman stablecoin rails is the whole ballgame
underrated right up until the first real stress test on 24/7 conversion during a weekend bank scare. then everyone will rate it very fast
stress test argument is tired. column settles through the fed, the stablecoin leg is the only new part. the weekend scare scenario is what pass-through insurance questions are for
already processing billions for Ramp, Brex AND Mercury? yeah this wasnt a side project, Column was planning this for years
Curious how this affects the orchestrators. If one bank integration replaces stitching together three providers, a whole layer of middlemen just got squeezed out.
@Tomasz the Mercury angle is the interesting one imo. they get multicurrency accounts out of this too, not just stablecoin swaps
William Hockey spent years on the pod circuit saying banking licenses are just slow databases. guess he finally got to ship the fast version
hockey spent 5 years building this in stealth. everyone laughed at the license acquisition cost and now column is the whole stack, wild
one bank integration replacing three middleware vendors is the actual story. Mercury and Ramp do not swap core plumbing for fun, the unit economics must be silly