BlackBerry falls out of CommBank favour

The Commonwealth Bank has revealed that it's unlikely to pour significant developer resources into making applications for BlackBerry users, with a senior bank executive saying that the mobile space will soon only be a race between Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Windows Phone.

"I see the platforms ending up being a three-horse race. You'll have Windows in one corner, iPhone in another and Android in a third [corner]. I can't see us investing in BlackBerry, for example. We just don't see the usage of it," said Drew Unsworth, general manager of Online Banking for the Commonwealth Bank.

Unsworth said that the bank has been tracking its customers' devices and noticed that BlackBerry usage is beginning to wane.

"We actually track log-ins by device, and we track log-ins by various versions of [software] out there and we're also then comparing them to each other. Android's going gangbusters, iPhone has already been going gangbusters and I've got a lot of belief that the combination of Nokia and Windows will be powerful," he said.

"I don't have that same belief with BlackBerry."

Speaking at a technology update for the bank today, Unsworth also made comments about the bank's mobile payment product, Kaching, saying that the long-awaited Android version of Kaching is currently in the final stages of development. Following the development stage, the bank will test the app internally with staff as beta users.

The executive said that he couldn't put an exact date on the customer launch of the Android version, but said that users could expect to see something in the next couple of months.

Unsworth also said that the bank will soon have Kaching's social payment functionality built into the desktop version of NetBank, allowing all users to take advantage of the features.