Morgan Stanley clients will never be without the bank’s latest research thanks to a new application for iPads and iPhones launched yesterday.
Morgan Stanley says the app, which can be downloaded for free from the iTunes store globally, is a first-of-its-kind tool that lets institutional investors view research from their mobile devices. They can also filter reports based on their investment profiles and access the bank’s familiar research features, such as risk-reward analysis, essential market debates, value drivers, pending catalysts and analysis of “what’s in the price”.
“This pioneering app provides instant access to Morgan Stanley’s unique research platform anytime, anywhere on the mobile internet,” said Barry Hurewitz, chief operating officer of investment research at Morgan Stanley. “It’s a powerful tool for instantly delivering the risk-reward essentials for which Morgan Stanley Research is known: market intelligence to identify the investor debates driving a stock; scenarios accounting for a full range of plausible outcomes; and evidence-based research that helps investors maximise the returns for the risks they choose to take.”
Investment banks have tended to stick with Blackberries for their own staff, but have slowly realised that many of their clients are now carrying iPhones and iPads everywhere they go.
Indeed, Morgan Stanley published a 424-page research piece in December last year, titled "The Mobile Internet Report", which claimed that 57 million people are now using Apple’s mobile internet devices.
The mobile internet, combined with social networking sites such as Facebook, represent the future of computing, according to the report.
Other banks have taken notice, too. J.P. Morgan has two apps available in Asia; one for its e-trading platform and one that lets its private banking clients access their accounts. Deutsche Bank has an eDerivatives app that links to its implied volatility data sets.
But most have not yet embraced the iPhone. Even retail banks have been slow to roll out apps that let customers perform banking transactions. HSBC, for example, has just one app for its Hong Kong customers – a basic tool that gives delayed stock quotes on the Hang Seng index.
If Morgan Stanley is right – that the success of Apple’s iPhones and iPads represent a fundamental change in the way people access the internet – other banks are likely to start rolling out their own apps in the next year or so. Vacations will never be the same again.
