Ripple is not my area of expertise, but my general understanding is that it is an inter-bank settlement network which has the potential to greatly improve efficiencies in the technology used by banks to transact with one another. I think it will be a while before tangible benefits for consumers emerge from the experiments currently underway, but to answer your question: yes, in the long run, Ripple could make international remittances much cheaper.

It is exciting to see that the financial industry has taken notice of Bitcoin and is now learning how to make use of the underlying blockchain technology that Bitcoin is based on. Will be interesting to see what comes of it!