CBA's NetBank for iPad gets release date
The Commonwealth Bank's long-awaited NetBank iPad application is set to go live next week, according to a launch event the bank has scheduled for next Tuesday.
Drew Unsworth shows off the NetBank iPad app
(Credit: Luke Hopewell/ZDNet Australia)
The event will see Commonwealth Bank's head of direct channels, Quentin Boyes, and general manager of channel marketing, Andrew Murrell, answering questions about a new "CommBank smartphone mobile hub app", as well as the new "NetBank tablet app".
The Commonwealth Bank has been inviting beta users into its Darling Harbour fortress to test the apps since at least December last year. ZDNet Australia understands that beta participants also signed non-disclosure agreements during the testing phase, promising not to talk about what they'd seen until the release of the app.
The bank's head of direct banking, Drew Unsworth, demonstrated the app to journalists in March on a tour of its new high-tech flagship branch in Brisbane.
Unsworth was cagey on specifics at the time, but revealed that the app is built on HTML5 and consolidates menus that were previously separate. He added that the new iPad app comes with the ability to cache a customer's unique NetBank log-on ID, something he said would speed up access to the app and have no impact on the security of a customer's banking details. The bank's executive general manager of service development and deployment, Tim Whitely, believes that mobile banking through devices like the iPad can often be more secure than desktop-based transactions.
"Mobile itself doesn't create a security concern, you have to build paradigms that are secure for the volume of the transaction that you're doing. In certain cases, mobile can be more secure," Whiteley told ZDNet Australia in March.
St George is also getting in on the app action, today releasing new mobile banking apps for the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 — apps that offer almost all of the functionality of ordinary internet banking, according to CEO Rob Chapman.
"Customers who do their banking on their smartphone, will now have access to 95 per cent of the features used most often through our internet banking service. This means our customers can do their banking anywhere, anytime, while they're on the go.
"With the emergence of a variety of new smartphones and tablets, mobile banking is becoming extremely competitive and important in the marketplace. St George is committed to providing the simplest and most effective banking solutions, so we're focused on this space," Chapman said in a statement today.
The National Australia Bank is also set to plant its flag in the tablet app territory shortly, after Chris Smith, general manager of online services, told ZDNet Australia at CeBIT 2011 that it's currently working on apps for RIM's PlayBook tablet.