The Commonwealth Bank's Kaching mobile payment application is now available for Android phones, the bank announced today.
The Kaching app launched almost seven months ago on Apple's iPhone and is finally available for Android. However, the key feature of Kaching for iPhone, the ability to make wireless payments using NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, is not available on the Android app.
The lack of NFC payments in Kaching comes despite the fact that many Android phones sold in Australia include an NFC chip. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X and One XL, and the Sony Xperia P all utilise NFC technology.
Neither the iPhone 4 or the iPhone 4S smartphones have a built-in NFC chip but use a compatible iCarte case to provide the required NFC technology for contact-less payments.
Kaching for Android allows Commonwealth Bank customers to make peer-to-peer payments (P2P) via mobile, e-mail and Facebook. The app links to the phone's address book to enable mobile and e-mail payments, and links directly to your Facebook ID to enable payments via the social networking service.
The Kaching for Android app also enables mobile, e-mail and Facebook payments to non Commonwealth Bank customers by directing these users to a secure, external site to collect payments.
Outside of P2P payments, the Kaching for Android app enables access to all basic banking transactions including account balance check. Users can also top up credit and debit cards linked to their account, pay bills through the BPAY service and locate nearby ATMs.
Kaching for Android requires Android version 2.3 or greater to run, but only a spattering of phones are currently supported by the bank, from Samsung and HTC. The Commbank site lists the following models as being compatible at the time of writing:
Samsung Galaxy S
Samsung Galaxy S II
Samsung Galaxy S III
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Samsung Nexus S
Samsung Galaxy Ace
Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung Galaxy Gio
Samsung Galaxy W
HTC Desire HD
HTC One X
HTC Sensation
HTC Incredible S
A notice on the bank's Web site says that Kaching will "progressively be made available to other Android phones."
The CommBank Kaching app can be downloaded through Google's Play Store now.
Elias Plastiras also contributed to this story.
