Launching a card program today requires at least three partners:
A bank to issue and settle with the networks
An issuer processor to run every authorization
A source of capital to fund the spend
Plenty of banks issue cards. A few provide capital. Almost none do issuer processing, because it’s the hardest and most technical piece. No bank offers all three together — which forces you to coordinate across different vendors with different motivations. That changes today.
Column has been issuing cards and sponsoring some of the largest programs in the United States for years as a principal member of Visa and Mastercard. We’ve experienced firsthand the delays and friction that come from using a third-party issuer processor. So we’ve built our own issuer processor from scratch, with direct integrations to the card networks, on the same banking core that we use to move trillions of dollars every year.
Our issuer processor product supports all the most advanced features out of the box, including:
Supporting credit, debit, charge, fleet, purchasing, prepaid, and unsecured cards
3DS, Level 3 data, disputes, tokenization, digital wallets, and spend controls
Creating advanced authorization policies and limits
Ordering physical cards from the largest manufacturers with one API call
Backing cards with stablecoins or settling in stablecoins with Visa and Mastercard
While we recommend using Column’s new all-in-one issuing stack for maximum flexibility and fastest time-to-market, you can always bring your own processor, capital provider, and/or card manufacturer.
Bank, processor, and capital
In a single integration with Column, you can launch a card program in weeks with the full card issuing stack: bank, issuer processor, and capital. Combining issuing with Column’s existing suite of financial products allows for powerful combinations of functionality, such as:
Originate a revolving loan, bind it to a card account, and issue a card in three API calls, with every authorization drawing down the credit line on one ledger
Receive stablecoin payments and instantly spend the funds on a debit card
Push funds to a debit card instantly and transfer the funds to another account seconds later via a real-time transfer
Receive an international wire to pay off the balance of a business charge card
Our card infrastructure was built on our own financial primitives and is a step change in capability for anyone building in financial services. Instead of stitching together banks, orchestrators, issuer processors, and a dozen other vendors, you now only need one bank — Column — to build any financial product at the frontier.
