CBA Kaching for Facebook app coming in early 2013

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (CBA) Kaching for Facebook app is set to go live in January 2013.

The bank flagged its plans for a Kaching for Facebook app in July, at the launch of the Android version of the app. According to CBA, Kaching has become one of the most popular ways to perform peer-to-peer (P2P) payments in Australia.

The bank claims that this will be the first Facebook banking service in the world.

Kaching has been downloaded around 700,000 times across iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, and has processed over AU$3 billion in transactions this year.

"P2P banking is taking off, especially with a younger audience," CBA chief marketing and online officer Andy Lark said in a statement. "6 percent of P2P payments on Kaching are to Facebook friends, and 28 percent 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.

"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."

There are roughly 12 million Facebook users in Australia. CBA confirmed that while the Kaching for Facebook app is used through the social-media portal, Facebook itself does not have access to customer's banking details.

What the app allows users to do is make payments to friends directly over Facebook. They can also send payment requests to friends up to a value of AU$500, which is a handy way of settling personal debts.

CBA is also releasing a redesigned Kaching app for Android, which will cater more to the OS itself and look less like a clone of the iPhone Kaching app.