UK bank drops BlackBerry in favour of iPhone as its standard corporate smartphone

Asavin Wattanajantra

British bank Standard Chartered is moving its bankers to the iPhone and ditching the business smartphone of choice, the BlackBerry

The move could eventually lead to thousands of bankers switching to Apple smartphones for business communication on the go.

A spokeswoman told Reuters that it was a group-wide initiative that involved wholesale and consumer banks globally, with the process of migrating corporate services from the BlackBerry to iPhone.

Usually financial institutions have restricted their workers to using the BlackBerry as the standard device issued by firms for business communications. It may take time for a broader switch, due to security concerns.

“If more companies switch to the iPhone, this is of course bad news for RIM,” said Lu Chialin, an IT industry analyst at Macquarie Securities in Taipei to Reuters.

“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 are still generally the device of choice for bankers and execs who need on the go access to email and the Internet.

But in a few years the iPhone may be seen as much of a business device as the BlackBerry.