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​CommBank takes 'Silicon Valley' approach to tablet app refresh

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has launched an app for tablets in the hopes of improving the user experience.
Written by Aimee Chanthadavong, Contributor

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has admitted that despite 65 percent of its customers accessing its services via mobile, the tablet market is an "unaddressed space" for the bank.

To fill the gap, it has refreshed its offering with a new app called "CommBank app for tablet", currently available for Android.

In the new version, the bank has added more visualisations to provide customers with an improved view of their banking and wealth portfolios.

Commonwealth Bank retail and wealth CIO Pete Steel said the bank's inspiration was to take a Silicon Valley-like approach of using analytics to tailor the tablet app to make it "fun" and "engaging".

"We don't think tablets are going to overtake mobile, but almost by time of day, you're on a bus, in a cafe, or shopping experience, mobile is fantastic. On a tablet, we see this space they're in the evening in front of the TV and on the couch, we call it the 'sitting back' experience, and we have observed based on your analytics that we think we do much better as an experience," he said.

According to Steel, previous customer feedback informed the bank that its former tablet interface was "out of data, and customers either were using the old tablet experience, or using a tablet to pinch and zoom on the website".

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(Image: Supplied)

Steel said the launch of the CommBank app for the iPad is "imminent".

"The philosophy we have is we're trying to make -- across each device -- a more personal experience. We think there is more value in making it a targeted experience based on the customer scenario or context, rather than to be the exact same all the time. We look at the way customers use us, and tailor each experience across each device," he said.

"The set of devices are changing. The experience on our watch app is targeted. We think as we take a step forward, we will bring a bit to each device, but it's not necessarily a priority to make it all the same."

The news from CommBank follows the bank's recent release of its first banking app for smartwatches on Android and iOS. The bank also made updates to its mobile banking app earlier this year, introducing Tap & Go payments through Host Card Emulation-based technology to any Android smartphone with NFC running KitKat 4.4 and above.

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