In the three years since Plaid Co-founder William Hockey stepped away from his position at the helm of the company he helped build, the visionary developer has largely remained out of the limelight. Saying he wanted to open the space for other “great leaders” to come along, he has kept his next projects quiet.
Now, however, he is ready to reveal his next big ambition: Column, a nationally chartered bank that can remove the barriers between fintech firms and the market.
“I’ve spent time with literally thousands of companies building in financial services, and it is painfully obvious that the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is the underlying banks they rely on,” said Hockey in an interview.
Now, as Co-Chief Executive Officer of the company along with his wife Annie, he is prepared to cut out the middlemen in the form of FDIC-backed sponsor banks. With Column, he claims, fintechs will be empowered to skip the lengthy insurance and regulation requirements and offer their products to consumers in a much faster, more convenient manner.
“Financial services needs to be consumer, developer, and internet first,” he continued. “However, in order to do this it needs a new backbone.”
