I am not sure what the current state of fintech is but it is fairly obvious to observe that there is a ton of cost in the industry that probably doesn't need to exist anymore (and btw, we aren't even in the first innings of this).

This has happened before: for example, insurance used to be sold in-person, then over the phone, now online. And that is innovation. Selling it in-person was very expensive.

But it is also true that none of the companies mentioned in the OP have really innovated anything. The innovation was finding a new way to justify massive volume growth that would later turn out to be unprofitable. This happens every cycle.

The distribution method wasn't really novel either afaik. Maybe having an app makes your product a bit cheaper but it isn't really going to be a massive difference to selling over the phone. In particular, with high-interest loans analysing credit quality is probably going to be more important. But idk (I have looked at these businesses and it isn't something I would ever get involved with: high-interest, P2P, all scams).