Column expands offerings to compete with Mastercard and Marqeta in stablecoin card issuing
The founder-owned chartered bank is integrating USDC and USDT directly into its core platform, betting it can undercut middleware competitors by owning every layer of the stack.
Column N.A., a federally chartered US bank, just made its play for the stablecoin infrastructure market. On September 16, the bank announced it has integrated USDC and USDT support directly into its core banking platform, along with full-stack card issuing capabilities spanning debit, credit, and prepaid products.
The target audience isn’t retail customers. It’s the fintech companies that need banking rails under the hood, and Column is betting that bundling stablecoin settlement, card issuing, and traditional payment networks into a single chartered bank gives it a structural edge over the patchwork solutions offered by competitors.
What Column is actually building
The core pitch is integration without middlemen. Column’s stablecoin support connects directly to its existing fiat infrastructure, meaning a fintech client can move between USDC, USDT, and traditional currencies across ACH, FedNow, RTP, Fedwire, and SWIFT without prefunding requirements or third-party intermediaries.
Column, as a chartered bank, owns its own ledger, processor, and banking rails under one regulatory framework. The bank has also introduced multicurrency account capabilities with access to global banking networks, including SEPA Instant transfers.
Early traction appears substantial. Column reported tens of billions in annualized stablecoin transaction volume shortly after launch, a figure that suggests the bank had been quietly onboarding clients well before the public announcement.
The competitive landscape is getting crowded
Column’s timing is deliberate. Mastercard acquired BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure provider, in August 2026. Marqeta, the card-issuing platform that powers programs for companies like Block and DoorDash, recently partnered with BVNK to boost its own stablecoin card capabilities.
Column’s argument against Marqeta is architectural. Marqeta is a card-issuing processor, not a bank. It needs banking partners to hold funds, move money through payment networks, and manage regulatory compliance. That creates layers of dependency, each adding cost, latency, and integration complexity for the fintech clients building on top.
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Against Mastercard’s BVNK acquisition, Column’s pitch is independence. A fintech using BVNK’s stablecoin infrastructure through Mastercard’s ecosystem is, at some level, tethered to Mastercard’s network economics and strategic priorities. Column offers a bank-direct relationship without the card network overhead, at least for use cases that don’t require Visa or Mastercard branding.
That said, Column isn’t replacing card networks for point-of-sale transactions. Its card issuing capabilities still ride on existing networks. The advantage is more about consolidation: fewer vendors, fewer contracts, fewer points of failure in the stack.
Why chartered bank status matters here
Column N.A. was founded by William and Annie Hockey, and it remains both founder and employee-owned without external venture capital. That ownership structure is unusual in fintech, where most infrastructure companies have raised hundreds of millions from investors expecting rapid growth and eventual exit.
The chartered bank status is the real differentiator, though. In the US banking system, being a chartered bank means Column holds deposits directly, clears payments through the Federal Reserve, and operates under a single regulatory framework rather than navigating the patchwork of state money transmitter licenses that burden most fintech companies.
For stablecoin operations specifically, this matters enormously. A middleware provider handling USDC-to-fiat conversions needs to route transactions through a partner bank, adding counterparty risk and settlement delays. Column eliminates that hop entirely. The stablecoin hits Column’s ledger, the fiat leaves Column’s ledger, and the Federal Reserve processes the outbound payment. One institution, one ledger, one set of compliance obligations.
What this means for the stablecoin market
For USDC and USDT specifically, Column’s integration creates another high-volume demand source. Tens of billions in annualized transaction volume flowing through a single bank’s stablecoin rails means meaningful on-chain activity that isn’t speculative trading. It’s commercial payment flows, card funding, and cross-border settlement.
The competitive pressure on Marqeta could be significant. Marqeta’s business model depends on being the essential middleware layer between fintechs and the banking system. If Column can offer card issuing, banking, and stablecoin settlement as a single integrated product, the value proposition of a standalone card processor weakens. Marqeta’s partnership with BVNK looks like a defensive move in this context, bolting on stablecoin capabilities to maintain relevance against vertically integrated competitors.
For Mastercard, the calculus is different. The BVNK acquisition gives it stablecoin capabilities within its existing network, which serves a different segment of the market, primarily merchants and enterprises already embedded in card network ecosystems. Column is unlikely to displace Mastercard at the point of sale, but it can compete aggressively for the backend infrastructure that powers fintech products.