WU incurred $41.3 million in "non-credit related losses," which includes fraud in 2020[1] which is only maybe 1% of their revenue. It had another ~$40 million in expected credit losses (primarily from agents), so I think ~2% of the fee goes to losses.

Since their gross margins are consistently 40% and their operating margins are ~20% I think barriers to entry/international government regulations better explains the high fees.

[1] 2020 10-k (ctrl-f for 41.3)

Thanks for digging that up. Yeah, I suspected that the "regulatory blockage" thing there might account for more of the risks than armed robbery :)