Amazon Pay users in India can now pay their utility, internet, mobile and TV bills using Amazon’s Alexa technology and systems.  It is the first time that Amazon has allowed its customers to use Alexa and Amazon Pay together anywhere in the world

It shouldn’t be too big a suprise that Amazon has added bill payments to Alexa in India first before any other country. Amazon has in the past sometimes prioritized India ahead of the US for major feature releases. For example, before it updated Alexa to speak Spanish in the US, it added support for Hindi. Moreover, asTechCrunch notes, India is an important Amazon Pay market, in part due to help from the Indian government. In 2016, when the Indian government stopped circulation of some of the country’s banknotes, it stated that one of the reasons for the decision was to promote digital payments.