Column vs Increase ACH

Column is a nationally chartered bank providing banking infrastructure and APIs for companies building financial products. Its payment connections include the Federal Reserve, The Clearing House, SWIFT and card networks, for moving money in the United States and globally. APIs support checking, savings, trust, subledger, clearing and sweep accounts, including multiple account numbers for a single account. Column says its programmatically created bank accounts are FDIC-insured.

Companies can launch debit, credit, unsecured, charge or secured card programs, using their own balance sheet or Column’s. Lending offerings include credit origination, warehouse and forward flow facilities, with dedicated funding for lending programs. Column also describes support for USDC and USDT, accounts and cards for verified customers globally, and foreign-currency accounts with conversion to and from U.S. dollars. Its card issuing connects to Visa and Mastercard and supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay and Garmin Pay. Developers can use API documentation, a sandbox and payment workflow guides. Column says its security program follows NIST and FFIEC guidance and is subject to governmental audits and independent third-party assessments. Pricing is on request; prospective customers are directed to contact sales.

Increase ACH is a web and API service for technology companies that originate ACH credits and debits, track returns, and store frequently used payment details. Increase says ACH is same-day by default, submitted at every Federal Reserve window, with payments potentially arriving in less than 24 hours. Next-day ACH origination is priced at $0.50, while same-day origination costs $2. ACH returns cost $5, unauthorized returns cost 15.00 USD, and late return request processing costs 25.00 USD. Unique counterparty account numbers support reconciliation. Incoming transfers can be previewed for one hour before allocation, with allow or disallow lists and other rules or limits. Return codes and standard entry class codes are exposed, returns are automatically correlated, and webhooks report transfer lifecycle events. The dashboard shows payment status, pending submissions, estimated arrival, and returns. Increase also lists PCI DSS Level I and SOC 2 audits, disk-level encryption, application-level AES 256 encryption for certain data, and HTTPS for API requests.