{
  "id": 5316308,
  "title": "Pencil Finance completes $1M onchain lending cycle for 6.6K students in Southeast Asia",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/03/pencil-finance-completes-1m-onchain-lending-cycle-for-6-6k-students",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-03T10:59:34.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Cointelegraph",
    "slug": "cointelegraph",
    "url": "https://cointelegraph.com/news/pencil-finance-1m-onchain-lending-cycle-students"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Pencil Finance has successfully completed its inaugural fully onchain student loan cycle, providing financing to 6,600 underserved students in Southeast Asia. The blockchain-based lending platform deployed $1 million in capital to back the loan cycle, which was facilitated by Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus. The loan bundles were structured with senior tranche investors receiving fixed returns and junior tranche investors facing variable returns and first-loss risk. Of the 6,600 students targeted by the loan cycle, approximately 1,050 directly received funding. The loans were specifically designed for students lacking access to traditional lending options, with 50% of borrowers being female and 93% hailing from lower-income households. Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) are becoming a popular method for issuing and securing loans, with some notable examples including a Brazilian stock exchange issuing a loan backed by tokenized cows and AI-powered smart collars monitoring the health of the animals.",
  "summary": "Pencil Finance said that its first-of-a-kind loan offered financing to 6,600 students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Fortune",
        "title": "Moody’s head of sustainable finance: Asia is embracing a ‘pragmatic transition’ on energy",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/03/moodys-head-of-sustainable-finance-asia-is-embracing-a-pragmatic",
        "published": "2026-09-03T04:30:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}