Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) will release an Android version of its Kaching mobile payments service in the next six weeks, according to ZDNet Australia.

Unlike the iPhone version of Kaching, however, which offers NFC payments in conjunction with an add-on case, the Android version won’t ship with support for NFC despite the technology being built into a wide range of Android phones:

Andy Lark, chief marketing officer of the Commonwealth Bank, told ZDNet Australia today that the release of Kaching for Android without integration with phones’ built-in NFC hardware is the fault of Google and device manufacturers that have not been able to keep up with the bank’s proposed release timetable.

“Our challenge on Android, frankly, has been [the fact that] we’ve been waiting for NFC clarity from Google. We haven’t got it, so we’ve made a decision to go ahead and get Kaching out there with some other features that we think people will love,” Lark said.

Michael Harte, chief information officer of the Commonwealth Bank, highlighted the lighter side of the situation, saying, “surely you pick up on the irony that there’s a bank in Australia pushing companies like Apple and Google to keep pace”.

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