It took 55 days between the all-singing, all-dancing unveiling of the Commonwealth Bank’s Kaching iPhone App in October and its eventual arrival today on the iTunes store. It doesn’t leave much time for anyone hoping to do any Christmas shopping using the new peer-to-peer payment app.

Public transport users in cities throughout the Asia Pacific region are big users of smart cards – or radio frequency contactless cards – and now lead the world in using the cards to pay for their travel.

Following the recent launch in Australia of two NFC capable BlackBerry smartphones, Research In Motion has teamed up with Sydney NFC specialist Tapit to promote the use of NFC in phones.

According to Michael Harte, the Commonwealth Bank’s chief information officer, the bank’s newly unveiled iPhone Kaching app could be available within a matter of days with only Appstore certification left to complete. There may however be a longer wait for the Near Field Communication enabled iPhone case which CBA had to offer as an add-on when Apple failed to integrate NFC in its latest iPhone.

  Google has signed up additional partners for its Google Wallet phone-based NFC payment system, and rolled out support for loyalty cards, coupons and exclusive offers.  

Demand for mobile banking services has grown by 80 per cent in the year to date at Westpac – which is forecasting it will achieve the first million mobile users two times faster than it reached that milestone for fixed internet access.

Consumers around the world are increasingly buying and making payments for everyday transactions using their mobile devices, with the total value of mobile payments expected to rise by $430 billion by 2015.

Having your cellphone as the only thing you need to carry to pay for anything from bus and train fares to your week's groceries and much more is become a distinct possibility as a 'ducks line up' for mobile payment systems enabled by near field communications.

Google has launched its second Nexus phone, based upon Samsung’s highly successful “Galaxy S” range of smartphones, through which it has also brought Android OS 2.3 to the world – likely months before other Android phones will get it.

A contactless payment trial using mobile phones instead of cards has proved successful, and may help pave the way for an international scheme for making small payments by waving handsets.