On the Move and Constantly Connected

A faint buzz comes from my pocket. I glance down, debating whether it's worth taking my hand off the rail as the train barrels wildly between Green Park and Piccadilly Circus, for what will surely just be another 8am press release, but decide to chance it anyway. One swift, practiced move later and I juggle my iPad between one hand, pulling the phone out with the other, flicking the case over and unlocking it at the same time. Only, I've misjudged this one, and with a red face and a thousand muttered apologies, I lose my balance and bump into the nice chap with the barely concealed hangover by the door. He isn't impressed.

For most of us, being connected by mobile simply means more work. How many people have rules about turning Blackberries off while spending time with your family, or at the dinner table? How many have anxiously awaited the moment when the Underground bursts into daylight and emerges from actually being underground, frantically turning Airplane Mode on and off to try and establish a signal, and competing with fifty other people doing the same thing?

Slow Steps
We've covered mobility in financial services a fair bit over the past few years, and the assumption has tended to be (at least in the beginning) that mobile is inevitable. Some vendors, in particular, have prophesized that people will be executing from phones and tablets exclusively. It hasn't happened.

Some initiatives support that, such as the Philippine Stock Exchange announcing its own mobility drive lately, but overall it hasn't had the take up that many predicted, even with the widespread use of cloud. Some say the functionality isn't there yet, although others claim that's starting to change with releases such as the new Windows operating system, and the adoption of HTML5. Others are still worried about employees leaving their tablets on the subway with confidential client information on them, although to be honest, a competent security and authorization system should take care of that. Besides, most people don't know the difference between a share and a derivative, so it's unlikely that much could be done with portfolio information anyway.

However, there has been a wide acceptance that mobility has its uses. Rather than front-line engagement such as trade execution, it's a way to keep on track of what's happening at any point. Like e-mail on your phone for instance, back before Mail integrated with iCalendar, or Gmail began its real enterprise push, monitoring what was coming through your inbox and dashing off quick replies here and there was a way to just keep track of what was happening rather than engage in lengthy e-mail-based activity. Now, with tablets of course, the possibilities for remote, mobile working are so much wider.

My feeling is that financial services mobile technology is waiting for that moment, or that innovation, which ties things together nicely and enables the wider transformation of the static office.

My feeling is that financial services mobile technology is waiting for that moment, or that innovation, which ties things together nicely and enables the wider transformation of the static office, in the same way that, for instance, camera phones, tablets, social media and online have transformed mine. But I'm interested to hear what you think as well, so please do get in touch via the usual channels. I'll also be hosting a webcast on this topic come April 25, which is free to listen in on.

On a side note, Waters is saying good bye to our European reporter, Steve Dew-Jones this week. Steve is leaving to pursue opportunities in current affairs on Friday, and it's been a pleasure to work with him over the past year.