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The Circle Foundation announced two grants on September 25 to fund stablecoin payment trials at the World Food Programme and the UN Development Programme, testing whether regulated digital assets can cut the cost and delay of getting humanitarian aid to recipients.
Under the new funding arrangement, World Food Program USA will support the WFP and its Innovation Accelerator as they develop governance, risk, compliance and treasury reconciliation frameworks for digital asset distribution.
The WFP stablecoin payment project is expected to test stablecoin payment corridors in two to three countries over the next three years. These corridors will connect international aid funding with local financial service providers and merchants, potentially creating a more direct route for humanitarian funds to reach recipients and local markets.
The initiative will also support independent research intended to establish operational benchmarks for the use of stablecoins in humanitarian payments. The research will examine factors including transaction speed, efficiency and cost effectiveness.
“Digital payments have the potential to make humanitarian assistance faster, more efficient, and more resilient,” — Bernhard Kowatsch, Director of the WFP Global Accelerator and Ventures.
The planned trials are intended to generate practical evidence about how digital assets can function within humanitarian payment systems. By testing the infrastructure across multiple countries, the WFP expects to develop benchmarks that can inform future approaches to digital aid distribution.
Alongside the WFP stablecoin payment initiative, Circle Foundation is providing a separate grant to establish UNDP’s Digital Asset Innovation Pool.
The pool is designed to help UNDP country offices expand beyond individual digital-payment pilots and use regulated stablecoins in broader program delivery. It builds on experiments conducted through the UNDP Alternative Finance Lab in several countries.
Previous projects included cash-for-work payments in Aleppo, Syria, transfers designed for low-connectivity environments in Haiti, community investment initiatives in Guatemala and mobile-wallet integration in The Gambia.
Elisabeth Carpenter, Chief Strategic Engagement Officer at Circle and Founding Chair of the Circle Foundation, said the funding is intended to address growing humanitarian needs while improving the efficiency of aid delivery.
“If we can help humanitarian and development institutions move value faster, more transparently, and at lower cost, we can ensure more of every aid dollar actually reaches the people who need it,” — Elisabeth Carpenter, Chief Strategic Engagement Officer at Circle and Founding Chair of the Circle Foundation.
The UNDP initiative reflects a broader effort to determine where regulated stablecoins can complement existing financial infrastructure. The approach is focused on moving funds more efficiently while maintaining the controls needed for development and humanitarian programs.
The WFP stablecoin payment trials will be accompanied by internal frameworks covering risk management, compliance and treasury reconciliation. Those systems are expected to provide the controls necessary for organizations handling humanitarian funds through digital-asset infrastructure.
Robert Pasicko, Team Lead at the UNDP Alternative Finance Lab, said digital payments are intended to complement rather than displace traditional banking channels.
“Getting resources to people should not be the most difficult or expensive part of delivering a program,” — Robert Pasicko, Team Lead at the UNDP Alternative Finance Lab.
Pasicko added that the Digital Asset Innovation Pool would support responsible use of digital payments for last-mile program delivery.
“The Digital Asset Innovation Pool will support UNDP in using digital payments responsibly to make last-mile program payments faster, more affordable and easier to access,” — Robert Pasicko, Team Lead at the UNDP Alternative Finance Lab.
For the WFP, the WFP stablecoin payment testing program will provide an opportunity to evaluate how such systems perform in actual humanitarian environments. The two- to three-country scope is also intended to provide comparable operational data rather than relying on isolated pilot results.
The emphasis on measurement is significant because humanitarian organizations must account for the speed and cost of distributing funds alongside governance and compliance requirements. The planned research will therefore examine stablecoin payments as part of a broader financial infrastructure rather than as a standalone cryptocurrency application.
The WFP stablecoin payment initiative also builds on Circle Foundation’s previous support for United Nations digital-finance infrastructure.
The foundation previously backed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Digital Hub of Treasury Solutions, known as DHoTS. The platform is used by 15 UN agencies to streamline cross-border transfers and forms part of the wider push toward digital financial infrastructure within the United Nations system.
The latest grants extend that work into development programming and humanitarian assistance. While UNDP will use its funding to establish a mechanism for expanding digital-asset applications across country offices, WFP will concentrate on testing payment corridors and developing operational benchmarks.
The WFP stablecoin payment trials are consequently positioned as a practical test of whether regulated digital assets can improve the movement of humanitarian funds while meeting institutional requirements for risk management and financial oversight.
Over the next three years, the WFP stablecoin payment program will generate data from participating countries on transaction efficiency, cost and speed. The findings are expected to contribute to the broader discussion around digital payments in humanitarian operations.
For Circle Foundation, the initiatives deepen its partnership with United Nations organizations and expand the application of regulated stablecoins beyond conventional financial technology use cases. For UNDP and WFP, the projects provide structured opportunities to assess whether digital payment infrastructure can support faster and more accessible aid delivery while remaining subject to governance and compliance controls.
As the WFP stablecoin payment program progresses, its results will offer a clearer picture of how stablecoin-based payment corridors perform under real-world humanitarian conditions. The WFP stablecoin payment framework, alongside the UNDP Digital Asset Innovation Pool, marks a further step in the United Nations’ exploration of digital financial infrastructure for development and relief operations.
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