Amazon recently announced that Alexa users will soon be able to pay their bills using voice. In honor of this announcement, we took a look at the top banking skills on the Alexa skills marketplace. These are all US skills because there are surprisingly no UK banking skills at the moment.
The most interesting thing with these skills is not so much the bank or the skill itself, but the user feedback. As companies enter the voice-payment space, I hope they will look at what works (and doesn’t) from existing skills. User reviews are an incredibly valuable source of insights for skill developers. This is especially true when we’re dealing with people’s money. What’s more, the voice ecosystem is still small enough that when users offer constructive feedback (as with BECU’s skill), it’s essential they reach out and learn directly from their engaged customer. This type of feedback is incredibly valuable!
Capital One by Capital One Services, LLC – 4.2 out of 5, 414 ratings, 275 reviews
Ask Capital One about your credit card, checking, savings,
and auto loan accounts. Then try out our new feature, “How much did I
spend?” to get quick answers on how much and where you are spending.
Random review: We have an Echo Show
and this is the only bank that I’ve found with an Alexa Skill that has visual
in addition to audible interaction.
I’d love to see this skill updated with:
1) Use the account nicknames I set in my online profile. Right now is just says
“Checking ####” or “Savings ####”. When you have more than one of an account
type, it is impossible to know which account is which and using the online
nicknames I have set would be great!
2) Ability to show/hide certain accounts (this goes for online as well as the
Alexa skill). I have an old long-closed credit card that is no use for me to
see/hear. Even worse, this account is listed first by Alexa and is just an
absolute waste of time to hear it go over the balance, last payment and open to
buy for a closed account.
Keep up the great work! I opened up another account specifically because of
this skill!! (4 out of 5)
U.S. Bank by U.S. Bank – 4.2 out of 5, 46 ratings, 14 reviews
Conduct simple, everyday banking tasks for your U.S. Bank checking, savings or credit card accounts with help from Alexa.
Random review: Love that with just my voice I can connect and find out the details about the state of my accounts. Dislike that I have to re-establish my account key every 90 days and I wasn’t warned of the limitation. Also wish that all of my accounts were accessible but my secured equity line and line of credit don’t appear. And I would like the balance to provide pending charges as an option. (4 out of 5)
BECU by BECU – 3.5 out of 5, 21 ratings, 2 reviews
Ask BECU about your checking, savings, money market, CD, and loan accounts.
Random review: This is a great v1 release. From a user perspective, it is important to consider what is the fastest, easiest way to get info. Asking for a balance is a good example. Listing 30 transactions is much better suited to a visual interface. One of the key use cases that would make this a killer app for me is to be able to quickly ask “who did check number 5678 go to?”. It takes a long time to log into the BECU website, go to checking, set up the correct date range for the query, find and click on the check number I want, and then get the pop up that shows who the check was written to. Instead, I’d like to be able to ask Alexa and get the info immediately. This may be tougher if you have to do OCR on the check image before returning the result, but if that is too hard then you can text the image to my phone. Want to discuss further? look up my member info and give me a call or email. (5 out of 5)
iPay QuickPay℠ by Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. – 4.1 out of 5, 14 ratings, 7 reviews
iPay QuickPay℠ is a voice service that allows you to make payments, review scheduled payments or payment history, and more.
Random review: The initial setup process was quick and easy. I was able to walk through my front door with my bills in hand and pay them in my kitchen before tossing them into the shredder. No reason to log into my bill pay site to do any of it! This is gonna be a big time saver for me! (5 out of 5)
