Key points

  • A Circle Foundation grant will enable UNDP to establish and operate a Digital Asset Innovation Pool for responsible use of regulated payment stablecoins.
  • A separate grant to World Food Program USA will support WFP infrastructure, safeguards and integrations for future stablecoin-enabled payment tests.
  • WFP plans to test two to three country corridors over three years, while established banking channels will remain part of the payment mix.

Two grants target different stages of adoption

Circle Foundation has announced two grants intended to move regulated digital-payment systems closer to practical use in development and humanitarian programmes. One grant will allow the United Nations Development Programme to establish and operate a Digital Asset Innovation Pool. A separate grant to World Food Program USA will support the World Food Programme and its Innovation Accelerator as they build the controls and local connections needed to test stablecoin-enabled payments. The announcement was made on September 25. It describes planned infrastructure and trials, not a broad payment system that is already live.

UNDP aims to turn pilots into repeatable programmes

UNDP's new pool is designed to help country offices assess and use regulated payment stablecoins where they fit a development programme. Circle Foundation said the mechanism will provide implementation support, regulatory and operational guidance, beneficiary safeguards, and tools to measure delivery time, cost and reach. It builds on earlier UNDP experiments that included cash-for-work payments in Aleppo, low-connectivity disbursements in Haiti, a remittance-linked community investment model in Guatemala, and mobile wallets connected to existing cash-agent networks in The Gambia.

Related reporting: Velocity adds $10M to Series A with Visa, Circle and Ripple backing

The pool adds an option rather than replacing banks

That distinction matters because the grant does not commit UNDP to use a stablecoin for every transfer. Circle Foundation's release says the pool is not intended to replace established banking channels. Instead, it is meant to offer another route where conventional systems create high costs, delays or access barriers. Country-level rules, operational conditions and protections for recipients will therefore influence whether a particular programme proceeds. The foundation did not disclose grant amounts, and the announcement does not identify a specific stablecoin or blockchain that every participating office must use.

WFP will first build governance and payment controls

The WFP-related grant focuses on the institutional layer behind proposed payment trials. Funding is expected to support governance and risk frameworks, treasury and reconciliation systems, and compliance tools that can operate across multiple countries. It will also support links with local fintech companies and mobile-money providers. Those integrations are important because a digital transfer still needs a practical route into financial services and markets that recipients can use. Independent research will examine cost, speed and operational feasibility, creating evidence that can inform WFP and other humanitarian organizations.

Two to three corridors are planned over three years

WFP plans to test two to three country corridors during the next three years, connecting its payment processes with local financial providers and markets. The programme is expected to evaluate efficiency, transparency and resilience. The countries have not been named, so the regulatory settings, delivery partners and recipient experience remain uncertain. The measured rollout also means the project should be judged by results from those corridors rather than by general assumptions about stablecoins. A successful technical transfer would not by itself resolve questions around local access, consumer protection, liquidity or currency conversion.

The grants extend earlier work across the UN system

The initiatives follow Circle Foundation's January 2026 support for the Digital Hub of Treasury Solutions, a shared platform launched by the UN refugee agency in 2021 to modernize financial infrastructure across participating UN organizations. UNDP and WFP are among its members. The new grants move attention from shared treasury infrastructure toward programme delivery and humanitarian payment operations. For Circle, whose parent company supports the foundation through an equity commitment, the projects offer a closely watched test of whether regulated stablecoin rails can reduce friction without weakening safeguards. For aid agencies, the central question is practical: whether more resources can reach recipients reliably, affordably and through channels they can actually access.

Sources

AI-generated editorial image; not a photograph of the reported event. Prepared with AI assistance and source verification.