London-based Standard Chartered bank is providing its thousands of bankers with a chance to switch from BlackBerrys over to iPhones, in a move that will strengthen iPhone’s position in the corporate world.

A person familiar with the matter told on the condition of anonymity that Standard Chartered decided to adopt iPhone as the device proved to be trendy as well as practical for corporate functions.

It was also informed that the process of migrating corporate e-mail services from BlackBerry to iPhone began a month ago.

Commenting on the topic, Peter Koh from Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp said, “We want to provide our colleagues with another option to access their office email and sync their contacts, notes and calendar while on the move."

Standard Chartered, the Asian-focused British bank, is one of the largest companies to adopt the iPhone. The move could encourage other companies also to adopt Apple’s much-hyped device.

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry has been the choice of bankers and executives as it allows them access to e-mails and internet when outside the office.