Standard Chartered, a heavyweight in the banking industry with 80,000 employees in over 70 

countries and territories, was recently featured on Apple’s website. An entire page in the iPad Customer Stories section highlights the bank’s innovative use of the iPad and iPhone.  A three-minute video describes why Standard Chartered chose Apple and how the technology benefits employees and clients. 

Standard Chartered has developed more than a dozen in-house iPhone apps that employees and customers can download through an internal app store called The Standard Chartered App Centre. Here are a few highlights:

For Consumers: 

• Breeze: A suite of mobile banking and lifestyle applications.
• FX Rates: A continuously refreshed, holistic view of exchange rates for currency traders (pictured on right).

For Employees:

• Straight2Bank: A mobile authorization app that gives corporate treasurers better control over transactions. 
• TradePort: An iPhone app that enables Trade Finance Relationship Managers to securely perform and monitor trades on the go.
• iNeeds: An iPad app that allows bank Relationship Managers to organize clients by using customized profiles. It can also be used as an interaction platform to explain the benefits of products such as savings accounts or mortgages, which will ultimately lead to up-selling and/or cross-selling more products.

In addition to the security that’s already built into the iPad and iPhone, Standard Chartered also uses:

• Restricted VPN access for internal systemsExchange servers to remotely wipe data from lost or stolen items
• Consumer confirmation of ATM activity using text messaging to complete transactions

Standard Chartered has started using location-based services and is in the midst of creating a profound user experience by introducing augmented reality.