International transfers are not intrinsically difficult or expensive, the real cost is in pennies. The reason why cross border payments are priced like they are is due to the lack of incentive, either economic or regulatory. BTC is a massive economic incentive for banks to charge more in line with the their true costs. Even if BTC fails as a currency itself, its greatest success might be catalysing innovation on prices and products at the incumbents.
Well, there's a lot of paperwork and time involved. Most U.S. banks raised their international wire fees to ~$60 at the end of October to comply with more regulations.
