Capital One integrates voice-powered payments with Amazon Alexa

The Alexa assistant works with Amazon’s FireTV and Echo smart speaker systems, enabling users to

carry out a host of tasks – from checking the weather to dimming the lights to playing music – through voice commands.

The Capital One integration means that once users sign up through the Alexa app they can pay their credit card bills and check their balances, recent transactions and upcoming payments by talking to their devices.

Lloyds Bank in the UK has also been exploring the capabilities of Alexa and Amazon Echo in relation to its online banking service. Although currently only available in the US, the Echo speaker system was selected for the exploration because it is “always connected, ready, and fast”, says Lloyds’ director of innovation and digital development Marc Lien, with capabilities delivered through Alexa, the cloud-based voice service supporting the device.

The vendor community is also taking note. In February, core banking vendor Jack Henry’s Symitar division introduced an initiative developed by Best Innovation Group (BIG) to enable personal assistant and voice interaction devices, such as Amazon’s Echo or Cortana by Microsoft for Windows, to act as new banking touchpoints. The integration would enable consumers to conduct routine online or mobile banking activity via voice commands.