SYDNEY: The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has introduced a new wearable banking app for its customers. The Australian Bank is one of a handful of local companies to announce their plans to get on your wrist. It follows the announcement of an app by the supermarket giant Woolworths, which is essentially a shopping list app, property websites Domain and realestate.com.au announced they will be releasing home hunting apps, and Invoice2Go has created an app that will let you streamline customer invoicing.
Mimicking the layout of the mobile application, the smartwatch app allows the wearer to check their account balance, find the nearest ATM and use cardless cash to make ATM withdrawals without a bankcard.
Westpac and its subsidiary St George Bank have previously announced their foray into the wearables space, though CBA’s introduction of smartwatch cardless cash would represent the first transaction completed on a wearable device in Australia.
The impending release of the app has been developed for Apple’s iWatch and Android smartwatches.
While you cannot conduct transactions between your accounts or with other people, and the app doesn’t provide the wearer with alerts, the software is fully activated using speech recognition technology.
“Today it’s about getting early adopters using it and pleased,” said Lisa Frazier, executive general manager of digital channels, Commonwealth Bank. “Australians are very tech savvy, it keeps us on our toes and their feedback will dictate what happens next.”
There have been no announcements from financial institutions regarding contactless payments from smartwatches, though figures suggest more than 70 percent of Australians are now using contactless payment options. Both Apple’s soon-to-be-released watch and Sony’s product have the capability to facilitate contactless payments.
