[manigandham]

The existing mainstream banking system can easily handle instant payments to anywhere already, they're called wire transfers. Within certain regions like the EU, it can be even faster.

The only reason international payments can be somewhat expensive is because of all the regulation involved into balancing a global currency system and making sure you're not funding the wrong people.

[mdorazio]

Not sure where you are, but here in the US wire transfers are slow and also expensive. Last time I had to do one internationally, it took several hours to clear and cost me something like $30.

[elliekelly]

NACHA (the U.S. body that governs ACH transactions) just started supporting international ACH transactions over the summer I believe. An ACH transaction typically costs the consumer between $0-5 (depending on how quickly they want it sent) compared to a wire transfer that could be $50 or more.

[manigandham]

Yes, because of the regulations. If you have any history of transfers then you're usually approved within minutes vs occasional usage. You can also improve the speed by using an abstraction service like Paypal which offloads some work while charging more for the risk.

[bouncycastle]

Besides speed, another interesting property of cryptocurrency based transfers is that they can be programmable. For example simple escrow or multi-sign off transfers or time-delays, all easy to do without lawyers or additional fees.

[manigandham]

That's a trivial detail. Whatever you use for trust (the escrow or signature service) can already handle the scheduling. No need to bake that into the money itself.

The reason we have lawyers is because the law is not just black and white. As many examples have shown, pure robotic management is not conducive to how people actually do business and the messy nature of human behavior.