Pencil Finance Closes Education Financing Gap with Onchain Student Loans

Pencil Finance, a student loan protocol, has achieved a significant milestone by completing its first fully onchain lending cycle. The initiative deployed $1M in loans to more than 6,600 students across Southeast Asia, with 50% of borrowers being female and 93% from lower-income households.

The bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus, and NewCampus, and structured across senior and junior tranches with fixed and variable returns. The largest share of capital flowed through education financing provider ErudiFi, which issued loans and tuition support to university students in markets such as the Philippines and Indonesia.

The protocol emphasized that putting the lending cycle onchain allowed every repayment to be auditable in real time, creating a public track record that can make future bundles easier to fund. The successful repayment of the first bundle signals a working alternative for transparent, blockchain-powered education financing.