In a first of its kind implementation anywhere in the world, Amazon India has announced that users can now simply call out to their Amazon Alexa smart speaker to make an instant payment of a utility bill from their Amazon Pay mobile wallet. You can now simply say “Alexa, pay my mobile bill” or “Alexa, pay my electricity bill” to an Alexa smart assistant enabled device to make the payment. The list of compatible devices includes all Amazon Echo smart speakers, Echo Smart displays, the Fire TV Stick and all third-party devices that have Alexa integration. India is the first country where Amazon has rolled out this integration between Alexa and Amazon Pay.
Amazon says this integration has been enabled across all bill payment categories which Amazon Pay supports, including electricity, water, postpaid mobile, cooking gas, broadband and direct to home (DTH) services. “This new integration of Amazon Pay with Alexa will help reduce both time and effort for customers who use Amazon Pay for bill payments and repeat similar transactions every month,” says Puneesh Kumar, Country Manager for Alexa Experiences and Devices, Amazon India. Surely this gives Amazon Pay another arsenal in the digital wallet battles against the likes of Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay and the upcoming WhatsApp Pay.
All Amazon Pay users can also ask Alexa to retrieve the amount due for the bills they wish to make the payment for. Alexa will ask for an exact amount confirmation before making the payment. But what about the privacy of these transactions and protection against someone else making a wrong transaction from your Amazon Pay account? Amazon says users can enable a voice pin on the Alexa app (free for Android and IOS) to add that additional verification later before making transactions. “Amazon Pay is committed to the long-term vision of a cashless India and continues to invest in experiences, which reduce customer friction, improve affordability and foster everyday habits, thereby building preference for digital payments,” says Mahendra Nerurkar, Director, Amazon Pay.
All the payment methods that you have enabled on the Amazon Pay mobile wallet can be utilized to make this voice-command based payments. Imagine telling your Bose Soundbar 500 to pay your mobile bill. The future indeed is fun.
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