Ok this I can actually explain. This will be a depressing story, but it drives the point home
About 3 months into my job and fresh out of training, there was a man who needed to send money to Africa for his father for life saving surgery, he would not go into detail as to what was needed, but he required to send about $7000 AUD (5,400 USD) to his mothers bank in Sudan, which needed to be converted to Sudanese pounds. Now, the bank he used in Sudan doesn't just accept Australian Dollars when transferred, so it had to go through Egypt through a sister bank. For the exchange, we took an instant transfer amount, then the Egyptian bank took an amount and by the time the money actually got to his father, he was short almost $200 (8,600 Sudanese pounds). He did not receive the payment for 12 working days and his father's surgery was delayed because the money wasn't made up and it was late. Now, the man came back and paid another $500AUD to be sure which would take another 12 odd days. His father eventually recieved it, but he was deceased by that time as his brain swelling was too much.
Which system do you think would have saved his life?
AUD($125 fee) -> Egyptian pounds ($100 odd fee) - Sudanese Pound (12 days)
AUD - > $5 fee -> Bridge currency (Fee included) - Sudanese Pound - (3-10 seconds)
You have to understand, that one of the biggest killers of transactions is time, cost and inbetween bank prices. This varies from bank to bank and network to network. So sending money to Thailand is cheaper than sending to Russia because there are less exchange steps and better networks. I wish it were as simple as "Single exchange and done"
