CBA reveals some deep circuits

The Commonwealth Bank did something a little risky yesterday. It invited a gaggle of IT journalists to the launch of its new suite of mobile banking applications with an Android offering that wasn't quite fully baked.

It seems some users with more obscure handsets were having trouble getting the login window to appear. We're aware of it, said the bank – we've been listening, and we're working on a fix.

It might not sound groundbreaking, but for a bank to deploy a suite of new apps and admit it's constantly iterating is rare.

“We have a history of overengineering things,” Commonwealth Bank general manager of channel marketing Andrew Murrell told Technology Spectator.

As the bank continues to invest heavily in technology and the online channel, it's changed its approach, and chief marketing and online officer, Andy Lark, says we can now expect to hear technology related news from the bank every three months, which he acknowledges is a different cycle for financial institutions.

“We have a very heavy investment now in technology and as a producer of applications and online sevices you'll see us announcing with the same sort of cadence as a technology company.”

Delivering products to market that aren't quite polished is common in the tech world, where consumers have some time to understand the concept of beta testing. But it's yet to migrate fully into the risk averse world of financial services, so it's interesting to see Australia's biggest bank give it a go.

It's a strategy that makes even more sense for mobile banking where new devices are emerging all the time and companies are still learning how consumers interact with them.

“We have some of our competitors running around saying it has to be a native app if it's going to live in the mobile space,” says Lark. “We just don't think that's the case. We think that different types of applications, different types of data will be presented in a wide range of ways.”

The bank has also been monitoring discussions on social media sites to find out what issues people are having with different mobile applications.

“When we talk to our customers and listen to them, families have a broad spectrum of devices,” says Lark. “Some have got Android devices, some have got Windows devices, some have obviously got iPhones and our intent is to build platforms that are available across the way they live their lives not just develop a one size fits all model and say... You can only have it one way in the form of an app.”

The bank has raised the bar, and must now deliver on its promises and react to customer feedback more quickly than it has in the past. This is the key to ensuring rapid rollout and iteration of new services is successful.

Ironically, tech giant Google, which is adept at market testing its products, has copped some criticism recently for its approach to selectively inviting users to new platforms, including Google .

Somewhere along the way as Google grew, users appear to have got more demanding and less forgiving of Google's iterative approach. Perhaps consumers only expect beta testing from smaller companies?

Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering in charge of Google , was open about the issues being raised regarding Google , posting on his Google page: "Lots of criticism for Google . We are listening and working to address. Stay tuned for changes this week."

He also apologised for an issue that resulted in users receiving mulltiple email notifications in error. But beyond Google engineers engaging with new users of its service, Google is maintaining a list of known problems with Google .

When the Commonwealth Bank gets to this level of transparency, it will have truly crossed over into tech company status.