UK mobile bank Starling Bank has revealed that is has been testing its APIs in conjunction with Google Home, the voice-activated speaker powered by Google Assistant and Google’s competition to Amazon’s Alexa.
In a video posted earlier this week Starling Bank demonstrated the integration of its API with the Google Home device. The demonstration included a degree of account management, including asking for an account balance and spending history, and making a person-to-person payment.
Starling has announced that the function is not currently available to its customers, but that making the banking experience easier for its customers, including through engaging voice recognition technology capabilities, is a priority for the bank moving forward.
Google Home is also not currently available in the UK.
Starling Bank’s testing video is just the latest indication that Google has its eyes firmly fixed on the digital payments industry in 2017. This news follows the announcement last week that Google Assistant has begun rolling out a payments feature for Allo, Google Pixel and Android Wear.
This is not the first example of banks integrating APIs with voice recognition technology for the purpose of payments. Capital One is amongst the financial institutions that have explored Amazon Alexa’s capabilities, and Siri, the rival tech from Apple, can be used on mobile in conjunction with banking apps including Monzo.
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