Southeast Asian Students Receive $1M Through Pencil Finance's Blockchain-Based Lending Program
According to Pencil Finance, their groundbreaking blockchain-based loan program provided educational financing to 6,600 Southeast Asian students who lacked access to conventional lending services.
Pencil Finance, a real-world asset (RWA) protocol focused on student loans, has successfully concluded a $1 million blockchain-based student lending cycle, providing educational funding to thousands of Southeast Asian students who were previously unable to access traditional financial services.
According to Pencil, the platform has finalized its inaugural entirely onchain student loan cycle utilizing blockchain technology, deploying $1 million in lending capital that borrowers subsequently repaid to the bundle's investors along with yield, as the organization disclosed in an announcement made public on Thursday and provided to Cointelegraph.
Financing for the bundle came in July 2025 from Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus, organized into a senior tranche offering fixed returns alongside a junior tranche featuring variable returns and exposure to first-loss risk.
Through this $1 million blockchain-based lending cycle, approximately 6,600 students spanning 118 educational institutions and universities throughout Southeast Asia received financing opportunities. According to Pencil Finance, this represents the inaugural fully onchain lending cycle for student loans with complete transparency through blockchain network recording.
Among the 6,600 students who benefited, approximately 1,050 were recipients of direct financial support. According to Pencil, the lending products targeted students who lacked access to conventional lending institutions, with female borrowers representing 50% of recipients and 93% originating from households with lower income levels.
The use of tokenized RWAs for issuing loans or serving as loan collateral continues to gain momentum in the financial sector.
During July, the B3 stock exchange in Brazil originated a loan worth 100,000 Brazilian reais ($19,600) backed by 10 tokenized cows serving as collateral, with each individual cow assigned a distinctive digital token connected to an encrypted digital identity, as AI-driven smart collars developed by agriculture technology firm Cowmed tracked the health status of every animal.