Column emphasizes role of FedNow® Service as instant payments ‘go mainstream’
Column
Column N.A. (Off-site) is a nationally chartered financial institution that provides banking services for fintechs and developers building new financial products. In 2025, the organization announced that its instant payment solutions were made generally available for all Column customers. Alex Gold, payments lead, had this to say about the value of the FedNow Service for customers and for the broader payments industry:
“Column prioritized early adoption of instant payments because we knew our customers — largely fintechs and developers — would be the fastest adopters and evangelists of these rails. We’re seeing those customers explore new use cases, build products, deliver the benefits of the FedNow Service to countless businesses and consumers, and become critical distributors for broad instant payments access.
“The FedNow Service helps us connect developers with the features and capabilities of transparent, around-the-clock payments. The detailed information that accompanies a FedNow transaction can be crucial when building faster and more flexible user experiences, and the ISO® 20022 format makes that information easy to use.
“Initially, we were the largest user of our FedNow-connected product. We used the FedNow Service to pay invoices, we understood firsthand what information we should expose to our customers and we tested the best ways to make that information available. Working through those options internally was hugely valuable and helped us make informed decisions about what our customers might want or expect from their instant payments experience.
“Like the FedNow Service, Column is use-case agnostic, and this flexibility is a big draw for our customers. We have many different customers building a wide range of products. So far, our instant payments volume largely originates from B2B transactions with use cases like invoice payments. This makes perfect sense: Businesses want the same instant options that we, as consumers, want in our everyday lives. These early use cases have also encouraged us to emphasize the importance of send capabilities for companies of all sizes.
“Smaller businesses, for example, see some game-changing benefits when sending and receiving A2A transactions to support treasury management. Instead of having to send a wire or wait for payment to clear, these businesses can access liquidity in real time. In the case of a larger-than-expected expense, even a tiny finance department can confidently understand their available cash reserves and trust that those reserves can be used any time.
“To make these funds as liquid as possible, that company needs to be enabled to both send and receive instant payments, and so we’re really encouraging other banks to adopt send capabilities. Sending instant payments is going to become a marketplace expectation a lot sooner than people may assume. For banks, now is the time to do it — not enabling send capabilities would be a big missed opportunity.
“With the growth of the FedNow Service and the consistent demand for faster, more transparent payment options, instant payments in the United States are at an inflection point. The infrastructure is ready, payments are flowing, and our customers are building real end-user solutions as instant payments go mainstream. It’s no longer a question of whether an organization is connected to the FedNow Service, but a question of how many different ways customers are already using it in their day-to-day transactions.”
Want to see what other organizations have to say about the FedNow Service? Read more FedNow customer testimonials here.