To create a more convenient banking, Commonwealth Bank has launched multiple technology firsts and enhanced the functionalities of its existing technologies.

These include:
•    Launching Kaching for Facebook
•    Redesigning Kaching for Android App that will feature new sharing and tagging capability in Netbank
•    Launching SmartSign technology to allow asset finance customers to execute loan documents electronically from anywhere
•    Launching CommBiz, a business banking app for medium to large companies to manage all their banking from iPads and iPhones

This comes following Commonwealth Bank’s customer usage data revealing mobile the most preferred banking platform with smartphones and tablets exceeding desktop logons. Over 1.56 million customers are now active mobile users.

The Kaching app has seen around 700,000 downloads and it has now processed more than $3 billion in transactions. Mobile now powers 46 per cent of all banking transactions. There has also been increase in online banking with almost 1 in 3 Australians (seven million) now accessing NetBank services online. Over 50 per cent of NetBank logins occur via a smartphone or tablet device.

“Driven by mobile, the Cloud and social – customers are demanding a new banking experience that puts the world’s most advanced technology at their finger-tips – whether it’s in a branch, on the street, or from their smartphone. And for those touch points to work together, not independently,” said Michael Harte, group executive, enterprise services and CIO, Commonwealth Bank.

While online banking has been skyrocketing, so too has Facebook in Australia.  With more than 12 million Australians on Facebook and around three quarters of them logging in at least once a day, the opportunity for social banking is compelling.

“Peer-to-peer (P2P) banking is taking off, especially with a younger audience. Six per cent of P2P payments on Kaching are to Facebook friends and 28 per cent of P2P payments in Kaching are now made using Bump technology that allows money to be exchanged or a payment to be made by tapping two iPhones together,” said Andy Lark, Commonwealth Bank chief marketing and online officer.

“Social banking is poised to rise with the introduction of the CommBank Kaching Facebook app, as more customers transact with their friends and relatives on Australia’s largest social platform,”