Australia’s Commbank not planning to update their 2013 app “in the near future”

Given events of the last few months we are all paying closer attention to banking apps these days. We all know about companies that have apps in the store and never update them, which can become painful when technology is advancing fast.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has one such app, last updated to version 2.0 in December 2013.  Since then their iOS and Android apps have added NFC payments and the ability to draw money from cash points without your bank card.

Australian windows phone users have of course been getting pretty restive due to these missing features:

It appears however Commbank is not planning on updating their updated app very soon.

Their support team has replied to a complaint by a Windows Phone-using customer by saying:

Dear Mr XXXX

Complaint Reference CF-2601903C

Thank you for your email.

Our Technical Support team have confirmed the Bank is not offering features on the windows application in the near future.

The Bank constantly reviews feedback and develops products to suit customer needs.

Your feedback will be considered when making changes in future.

I am sorry for the inconvenience.

In many ways these apps become abandonware (likely because Microsoft sponsored their development in the first instance) and I suspect as these apps age the temptation for banks to just drop them become increasingly greater.

Besides massively increasing the Windows Phone-using population, I think the only other way for Windows Phone users to fix these issues is to become much, much louder. Smaller groups have accomplished more by simply refusing to accept no for an answer, and it may be that in the near term that is the only way forward.

Do our readers agree?

Thanks Manpreet for the tip.