You realize there's no such thing as 'free' right? What's the saying? "If you don't know who is paying for a product you're using that's free, you're the product."
Yes. Banks give out loans. And they share a (tiny) part of their proceeds with their account holders!
And the cost of this to the end-user is the risk that if everyone simultaneously tries to withdraw their money, the bank won't have it. That's happened once in U.S history. I think it's a safe enough bet.
Unless you are sending huge amounts of money, bitcoin is more expensive.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6gek0z/average_bitcoin...