New members include UNHCR, Mastercard, Paycode, Coala Pay, Meld, and Rahat
SINGAPORE, Sept. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Algorand Foundation announced a successful meeting of its Humanitarian Aid Payments Council, a group of leaders in blockchain, humanitarian organizations, and finance, dedicated to effective blockchain solutions in humanitarian aid. The Council met in Berlin to discuss how to scale humanitarian aid disbursement on blockchain. The council welcomed six new members: UNHCR, Mastercard, Paycode, Coala Pay, Meld, and Rahat.
The Humanitarian Aid Payments Council consists of leaders from UNHCR, Circle, Mastercard, Worldpay, HesabPay, Coala Pay, Rahat, Polisync, UNDP AltFinLab, Quantoz, Disaster Services Corporation, SVDP, Meld, COAR Global, CALP Network, Market Impact, Mercy Corps Ventures, PayCode, Supeer Labs, and Stellar Development Foundation.
Members discussed the importance of moving beyond pilots to scale the impact of humanitarian aid on blockchain. To scale, the Council emphasized the need for all key stakeholders in the aid value chain, from donors to policymakers to implementers, to understand blockchain technology and how it applies to each aid specialty. Algorand Foundation also unveiled its Aid Trust Portal, an online portal to track and visualize humanitarian aid payments. The Aid Trust Portal was well received by all members and led to discussions on the potential to rebuild trust in aid by focusing on transparency in aid payments.
The Council is already seeing the impact of blockchain-enabled payments on humanitarian aid. One Council member, HesabPay, built a digital wallet on the Algorand blockchain that is deployed in Afghanistan and Northeast Syria. Through partnerships with several UN agencies, HesabPay has enabled tens of thousands of families to receive aid securely and directly via blockchain payments.
"Algorand created the Humanitarian Payments Council because we believe blockchain rails-especially in countries with distressed banking systems-can deliver the transparency and traceability donors and implementers require, while giving beneficiaries the dignity and agency of direct, secure digital payments. By bringing together leaders from the aid community, global finance, and technology, we aim to scale what's already working. Building on meaningful results in Afghanistan, we're excited to extend blockchain-enabled aid payments to new regions where this technology will make a meaningful difference, including Syria," said Matt Keller, Director of Impact at Algorand Foundation.
The Council envisions a future of humanitarian aid that is more transparent, secure, and effective. Blockchain enables low-cost, fast, and secure payments, which make it the ideal technology for global aid payments. The goal of the Council is to advance the use of blockchain technology for humanitarian aid in order to transform the way cash assistance is delivered.
To learn more about the Humanitarian Aid Payments Council, visit https://algorand.co/solutions/humanitarian-payments.
About Algorand
Algorand's mission is to power a world where information has integrity and innovative ideas can scale. Launched in 2019, the Algorand (ALGO) blockchain has grown into a vibrant ecosystem of developers, entrepreneurs, and enterprise partners that benefit from institutional-grade certainty and resilience. Its low fees, instant finality, and minimal carbon footprint appeal to the protocol's millions of retail users, and developers of all kinds appreciate the ability to use common programming languages like Python and Typescript. Builders on Algorand are creating protocols and companies that solve important problems at a global scale: tamper-proof on-chain credentialing, instant payments in war and disaster zones, self-sovereign identity for the disenfranchised, supply-chain traceability for global commerce, and the creation of entirely new markets through tokenization, to name a few. To learn more and start your journey on Algorand, visit algorand.co.
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