727 FinancePANews reported on September 25 that the Circle Foundation announced two grants to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Food Program (WFP) to explore the application of digital payments and digital financial infrastructure in humanitarian aid and development projects.
The Circle Foundation stated that related plans will study how to use digital payments and regulated payment stablecoins to disburse funds to recipient groups faster, more transparently, and at lower costs.
For UNDP, funding will be used to establish and operate a "Digital Asset Innovation Pool" to help national offices expand the digital payment pilots previously carried out in Syria, Haiti, Guatemala and The Gambia from a single project to regular project implementation, and provide regulatory, operational and beneficiary protection support; this mechanism will not replace traditional banking channels, but serve as a supplementary option to the existing payment system. For WFP, funding will support its construction of governance, risk management, funding and reconciliation systems and compliance tools required for stablecoin payments, and the integration of local financial technology and mobile payment services. In the next three years, WFP plans to test 2 to 3 payment channels that connect its payment system with local financial service providers and markets to evaluate the performance of stablecoin payments in terms of efficiency, transparency, and resilience.