Australian bank to develop BlackBerry PlayBook apps

The National Australia Bank has revealed that it is currently building apps specifically for Research In Motion's new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, while voicing ongoing concerns over the security of Android-based banking.

Speaking to ZDNet UK's sister site ZDNet Australia at CeBIT 2011 on Thursday, Chris Smith, general manager of online services for National Australia Bank (NAB), said that the launch of the PlayBook had driven the bank to develop new apps. "We watch the [operating-system] space to see what consumers are using and what platform they want to adopt. For us, we started with Apple and moved to Droid with Google, and we are looking at BlackBerry, and the new tablet that they have, and also Windows [Phone] 7," Smith said.

Smith admitted that there were some challenges developing for the QNX-based Blackberry PlayBook, however. "The BlackBerry is targeted to the corporate sector, and they're often locked down so you can't download apps. If we build an app, we want that to increase our reach and usage, but sometimes corporate policy doesn't allow that to happen," he said.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see NAB developing PlayBook-specific apps on ZDNet Australia.