You can’t patent a credit product. As soon as other lenders see this business, their margins will be competed away. That 2BN valuation looks very artificial.
That has literally never happened before to my knowledge. See online payments with Paypal, robo-investing with Betterment, crypto-currency with Coinbase, etc.
The more likely scenario would be other startups rising up to compete with them, but it seems like these guys have a decent head start with 100 million funding and what looks like a compelling product judging from their traction.
They think they can, and they’ll try, and it’ll be a hot mess, and Brex will be fine.