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iPad Lets Treasurers Roam Free

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Mobile applications have become popular in finance because they liberate executives from their desks and allow them to work around in the business while still being able to check on transactions. For treasurers, this changes the nature of the job and allows them to participate more broadly in the business.

Tablets are taking off faster than any new technology since email, said TL Neff executive vice president at Verivo, which has developed a platform that allows users to deliver applications across multiple mobile platforms including iPad, Android and BlackBerry.

“iPads are just rampant throughout finance services.” he added.

The treasurer for an Asian bank liked a mobile app because he thought it was cool, said David Hamilton, president of SunGard’s bank business. A bank treasurer in Amsterdam said he found his mobile access invaluable.

“The coin dropped for me at Sibos (the annual SWIFT international banking operations conference) after I had talked to a dozen or more of our customers. In the end, it became obvious to me that in a number of areas, treasury being one of them, we need to unlock some senior people from their desktops.  In trying to manage the balance sheet and the customer flow business, they have to stay engaged, so they need to spend time out of the office.”

That’s the way bankers want to work, according to Diarmuid Mallon, senior product marketing manager at Sybase 365. While the back office staff remain glued to desktops, senior executives want mobile access so they can monitor transactions and approve them wherever they are.

Ed Gainer, executive vice president for North America cash management at Fundtech, said his company’s mobile applications are aimed primarily at the management level so a manager can look at cash, loans, and payments at any time from any place. The company, which sells to banks and corporate treasury operations, has developed applications for the iPhone and Android phones and is working on an iPad app -- a tablet dashboard to provide alerts like transactions that need to be approved or balances that have fallen below a certain level.

On the iPad, the larger screen will allow firms to offer more information such as bank statements and reports. Some banks will offer remote deposit capture through the iPad directly to a bank or service bureau. The back office staff will probably remain at their desks monitoring cash flows, but the senior executives who just have to approve transactions or monitor cash flows can do it from anywhere with mobile devices.

The iPad is an interesting phenomenon, said Gainer. “Banks are eager to get iPads... any meeting I go everyone has an iPad. People are hungry for a business use of these iPads such as assets, electronic invoice and various types of payments. Small businesses will take payments with a card swipe and leverage our back office, and a customer can put a check on there and do a deposit. It will enable small businesses to be mobile.”

Information Mosaic, a company which provides software for managing corporate actions, is developing an iPad app that it expects to be available near the end of this year, according to Gerard Bermingham, head of strategy at the company. With it, users will be able to manage their portfolio, see what trades are outstanding and pull up a chart-based view of a particular position. They can also run what-if scenarios to see the impact of accepting a tender, for example.

The front office will find it useful because they can take information to client and provide real-time reporting. A cutdown version is available for the iPhone.

Fundtech’s Gainer said the smartphones and tablets should also be popular with tradesmen because it can provide electronic invoice preparation and accept payment in the field by check or credit and debit cards.