CBA to release Android-powered Point of Sale and Banking Systems

Say hi to Pi, the CBA’s (Commonwealth Bank of Australia) newly announced, Android-based Point of Sale and Banking Systems.

Specifically, Pi is set to revolutionise the retail and hospitality sectors, and is powered by Albert, a 7″ Android Ice Cream Sandwich based tablet capable of running multiple apps designed especially for the Pi ecosystem.

Let’s take a closer look at Albert, pictured above. Albert is equipped with many features to make him a success in the retail world – it includes a NFC and an EMV chip, a 7″ display at 1280×800, supports both 3G and WiFi (think mobile businesses here), and an 8MP camera, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of memory are also along for the ride.

Albert will integrate into the Pi ecosystem, just as many other apps and hardware systems will, such as electronic cash registers, receipt printers, scanners and the like, which are all necessary retail tools of trade.

On the software side, Pi apps will be able to manage almost anywhere there is a need for Point of Sale integrated systems, for example inventory management for a hardware store, to managing the perishables and re-ordering requirements of a cafe, managing your store’s loyalty program, and more.

One interesting application already mentioned is “split the bill” for restaurants which will cleverly work out the cost of each person’s meal at a table, so the restaurateur doesn’t have to!

The CBA are on the hunt now for developers to sign up to the Pi program and are also actively tweeting out updates on the fly.

Pi and Albert, as well as Ka-Ching, are heralding a new change for Australian Banking, a change none to soon we hear you say.

Follow along as we will endeavour to bring all the updates and app news as it is released.

Source: Commbank