It's still ok though. I pay wire with my bank many issues:
- fill in long form because foreign guy
- Friday send only process Monday. Monday process only arrive Thursday (3 work days + timezone)
- 3% flat fee
- bank rate forex bad
So yes even in high fee, I love sending BTC.
and yet banks invented debit cards to save on filling in forms and excess fee's
whenever i go abroad and use debit card i dont have your fiat experience..
and yet bitcoin is becoming worse than fiat.
natively im british so my bank wire transfers of fiat are free. but now bitcoin has been the thing with huge fee's
i remember the days when bitcoin was advertised as the remittance system for international currency exchange that was cheaper the using WU.. now western union is cheaper then bitcoin..
core devs love the fee mania and congestion. it helps advertise their corporate sponsors ROI via alternate payment networks that use middlemen
When you send money overseas like I do, you always fill froms. You have now 'convenient' option of Vis payment but guess what you still have online form to fill, plus Reason of sending, Relation of receiver and Source of funds AND higher fee of 5%.
Most of us asians send money abroad, remittance through companies is the cheaper option but still days of waiting and forms.
WU? My WU is flat fee almost 4-5% (it gets smaller with big amount) plus worse exchange rate. Its the fastest (instant collection) but MOST expensive.
You'reBritish so maybe you don't feel thirdworld daily occurrence

visa debit cards can be taken out easily. i use one all over the world. never have i needed to fill in paperwork per transaction/per country visited
when bitcoin fee's are $30. sending $100 is 30% fee
when bitcoin fee's are $30. sending $200 is 15% fee
when bitcoin fee's are $30. sending $600 is 5% fee