UK bank Standard Chartered will replace its current corporate communications device, Blackberry, with iPhone, an action that could result to many bankers using Apple devices for their business.
Bankers from Standard Chartered in Asia said to Reuters that its company in the UK was giving an option to corporate BlackBerry users to switch to iPhone, with the company approving to pay bills for business-related data and telephone services.
“It’s a group-wide initiative involving wholesale and consumer banks globally”, said a Standard Chartered spokeswoman based in Singapore.
The process of switching corporate email services to iPhone began last month, the spokeswoman said, although she didn’t know how many among the 75,000 employees in Asia used BlackBerries issued by the company or when the switch can be completed.
Bankers from other institutions like Morgan Stanley and HSBC Holdings Plc have so far been using BlackBerry as their standard device which is issued by their companies for business communications. Even though there are indications of change, a broader switch may take time, mainly due to security concerns, information technology analysts and financial professionals said.
“If more companies switch to the iPhone, this is of course bad news for RIM”, said IT industry analyst Lu Chialin in Taipei. “However, it will take a long time for companies to do their own internal testing before deciding to change, so it will be a while before it has any effect on RIM”.
BlackBerries, from Research in Motion in Canada, are the device often used by executives and bankers who need regular access to the Internet and email when outside the company.
