Barclays Bank vaults ahead and buys 8,500 Apple iPads

British financial institution Barclays Bank has purchased 8,500 Apple iPads at a cost of £3.3 million ($5.3 million USD). That works out to an average price of $623 USD for each tablet. The bank says that it will use its new tablets for "improving the customer experience." Another company needing to purchase tablets, Emirates Airlines, decided to go with the Microsoft Surface due to its "security and robustness".

"We investigated a number of different tablet options and in this instance, we concluded that iPads were the best solution for their specific needs. We are now starting to use these across Barclays branches in the U.K."-Barclays' Spokesperson

Did Barclays shoot from the hip and go with the Apple iPad for the same reasons that many out there decide on one of the Cupertino based manufacturer's iDevices? The bank did not publicly divulge the process it used to make its decision to purchase the iPad. Still, one might make the assumption that because the tablets were not purchased until after the Microsoft Surface had launched, Barclays looked at and rejected the Surface in favor of the Apple iPad. 

While the bank did admit to looking at a number of tablet options, in the end, it might be an app that led Barclays to the iPad. The company plans on using an app calledMortgage Brain that works only on the Apple iPad and is owned by other major banks like Barclays Woolwich, RBS, Virgin Money, Santander, Lloyds TSB and Nationwide. The app checks the market for mortgage options.

The bank bought the tablets from a company called Insight UK and is one of the largest tablet purchasesin UK financial service history. Insight says it is seeing more interest in the Apple iPad as a business tool. The company's president Stuart Fenton said, "I can confirm we are seeing significant interest in the take up of Apple iPads in large enterprise".