iPhone replaces Blackberry for some bankers

British bank Standard Chartered is replacing the Blackberry, currently its standard corporate communications device, with the iPhone, a move that could eventually result in thousands of bankers switching to the Apple device for business communication on the go.

British bank Standard Chartered is replacing the Blackberry, currently its standard corporate communications device, with the iPhone, a move that could eventually result in thousands of bankers switching to the Apple device for business
communication on the go.

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Standard Chartered bankers in Asia said the London-based lender was giving its corporate Blackberry users the option of switching to the iPhone, with the company agreeing to continue to pay monthly billing for business-related telephone and data services.

“It’s a group-wide initiative involving wholesale and consumer banks globally,” said a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Standard Chartered. The spokeswoman declined to be identified due to company policy.

The process of migrating corporate email services from the Blackberry to the iPhone started about a month ago, said the
spokeswoman, although she did not know how many of the Asia-focused bank’s 75,000 employees used company-issued Blackberries or when the switchover could be completed.

Bankers at other financial institutions such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Morgan Stanley have so far been restricted to the Blackberry as the standard device issued by their firms for business communications. Despite some indications of change, it may take time for a broader switch to take place, mainly because of security concerns, according to financial professionals and information technology analysts.