UK bank Barclays has bought 8,500 iPad for use by its staff. The purchase is believed to be one of the largest rollouts of the iPad, or any other tablet for that matter, ever in the UK finance section.
A PR mouthpiece at Barclays told us that staff had demanded the reassuringly expensive pad over any other shiny devices – clearly there are a lot of fanbois in the bank’s ranks.
She said the device will be used “to assist our branch colleagues to interact with customers, improving the customer experience”.
The spokesperson went on to say that they had investigated a number of different tablet options, and concluded that the iPads were the best solution for their specific needs. The bank is beginning to use the tablets across Barclays branches in the UK.
The bank is planning to use an app called Mortgage Brain, which was specifically written for the iPad. The app is jointly owned by six banks including Barclays Woolwich, RBS, Virgin Money, Santander, Lloyds TSB and Nationwide.
The app is specifically targeted at all mortgage brokers, said Mark Lofthouse, chief exec at Mortgage Brain, and can scan the entire market for available options.
