Control over end user devices, once a given at so many companies, is loosening. Employees insist on being able to use their Apple, Android and BlackBerry devices for work and being able to access all their apps and files however they want to. Along with smartphones, consumers are adopting tablets such as Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook, Apple Inc.'s iPad, and Amazon Inc.'s Kindle.
To ride the tide, many banks are starting to craft Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, which establish how employees who use personal devices at work can also access corporate assets.
"We allow just about any kind of device, but we only allow email and connection to the Outlook Exchange server access," says Jim Craig, vice president of marketing for 1st Advantage Federal Credit Union in Newport News, Va.
Like a lot of financial institutions just starting to draw up these policies, the credit union, which has assets of about $530 million and 57,000 members, is starting small.
1st Advantage is first allowing only senior-level executives to use personal devices like the iPad to access corporate assets. In this case, as with its policy governing laptops, users can't store any corporate information on the device, Craig says.
If executives are working from remote locations they must access company servers using the company's virtual private network. While 1st Advantage reimburses them for a portion of their plans, Craig says for security purposes, the credit union may consider policies like setting limits on how much data personal devices can access when they synch with corporate servers.
1st Advantage is also beginning to think about ways to loop in more of its employees, particularly as it launches a mobile banking suite for its customers. In conjunction with that, 1st Advantage sees potential for its representatives to use tablets such as the iPad to service customers in the branches. It's an option that an increasing number of bankers consider to be more interactive with consumers than the traditional method in which customer service representatives share sales brochures and documents with consumers; or turn around to enter information into a computer that's behind the rep on his or her desk.
By using tablets to engage customers, customer service representatives could start taking and processing applications on iPads, for example, Craig says. Reps can both enter data and continue speaking with consumers face-to-face.
Banks can no longer stubbornly resist this trend - the horses have already left the barn, experts say. With nearly 2 billion smartphones projected to be in use globally in the next two years, bank IT departments have no choice but to figure out the best policies for regulating use of personal devices in the workplace.
Much of the demand arises from the C suite, which want the utility, portability and comfort of their own devices.
"Executives themselves want to use personal devices, and you can't say to the CEO you can't get into the system," says Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst for Gartner Inc.
BlackBerry has long held the lead with smartphones for the business market, and IT departments favored them because they could easily lock the devices down and manage them from a secure server. Now more than 4,000 variations on devices that run on different operating systems are challenging the wit and verve of technology departments.
"The first thing [bank IT departments] need to consider is, do they have the infrastructure to handle this," says Jacob Jegher, a senior analyst with the research firm Celent. "They will need software that will be able to manage multiple devices; it is not just a standard BlackBerry anymore."
