CommBank debuted its new app this morning, featuring a shiny new iOS 7-like design, and the ability to do NFC payments from both Android and iOS smartphones. Here's how it works.
CBA will now allow customers to pay using their smartphone in two ways.
The first is a little sticker called CommBank Paytag. It's a tiny little sticker that attaches to the back of your phone, and allows you to just hover your phone over a PayPass or Paywave terminal to pay for stuff. The PayTag will cost you $2.99 and you can order it through your app. The PayTag and the phone talk to each other when it's stuck to your device, and you have the ability to turn it on and off within the app.
The second option is a little more exciting. It allows customers to use their internal NFC hardware to make payments. CBA has said that it "isn't in a position to reveal which [Android] handsets will be compatible", so stay tuned.
Both of these payment options are covered by the 100 per cent money-back guarantee if anything goes wrong.
This isn't the first time CommBank has given bespoke mobile payments a crack. It had the iCarte case linked in with the old Kaching app for iPhone devices way back in 2011.
Since then, the product dwindled slightly as the CBA experimented with different ways to pay via mobile. Australia quickly became the number-one market in the world for Contactless card payments, which meant that the bank needed something new. Enter the new CommBank app.
The new app sure is shiny, and it rolls in the features from both the old Kaching and the CommBank app into the one piece of software. A wise idea. The app also now allows you to pay bills using BPAY's QR code features. That's a great way to add new billers to your address book easily.
Windows Phone 8 users will get all the new functionality of the app, sans payment capabilities, CBA told us. Sorry WP8-ers.
The Commonwealth Bank told us that it will release the product in the next few months. [CBA]