The long reign of BlackBerry as the City’s favourite gadget is under threat from a new generation of handsets that promise thousands of functions for the finance professional. With mobile applications, many of which are not yet available for the BlackBerry, users can monitor stock and fund prices anywhere and at any time, hold video conferences and keep track of business expenses with a mobile phone.

Such functions have attracted the attention of Deutsche Bank, UBS and Standard Chartered, all of which have either offered Apple products to staff or tested them as an alternative to the BlackBerry.