An ex-banker warns that AI agents increasingly handle real commerce—making payments, buying advertising, negotiating—but lack auditing systems to verify their actions. Drawing parallels to the 2008 financial crisis when unchecked numbers caused disaster, the author argues that without verification layers, fraud and mismanagement could proliferate at machine speed while businesses remain disconnected from the truth of their spending.
Column built an issuer processor from scratch, offering a single integrated platform combining banking, card processing, and capital for credit, debit, prepaid, and stablecoin-backed card programs on Visa and Mastercard. The platform enables card program launch in weeks through three API calls, with full control over authorizations, customization, and real-time transaction decisions.
Column released four new financial products: stablecoins with full interoperability between USDC/USDT and U.S. dollars, full-stack card issuing with its own processor, global banking capabilities for international customers, and multicurrency accounts with instant conversion. These products consolidate multiple financial infrastructure vendors into a single integrated platform for fintech companies.