I’m trying to move away from Google and other big tech corporations as much as I can without sacrificing practicality but it seems like the only way to make contactless payments is with stock android on a Google approved device.
Is there any alternative out there that would allow me to make contactless payments without these conditions met? (For example, if I put grapheneos on my phone)
I don’t think so. These are heavily regulated and that’s why Google Pay/Apple Pay is still not available in all countries after so many years.
So unless your bank allows that, which I doubt they’ll, Google Pay is probably the only way to do contactless payment the traditional way.
Unless your country/city has a widely accepted third party payment system that doesn’t go through the bank, like a digital wallet that you’ll have to top up its credit, then maybe.
Or if for some reason everyone accepts crypto 😂
I’m incline to say that there’s no way. I order to have secure payments you have to secure each and every step of the process. Without a big corporation under those steps no one in his right mind will gamble with payments
Exactly, payments processing requires a Chain of Trust where each step can be verified as a known, trusted, actor.
The government could reasonably enact a more open standard using digital currency, but you would still depend on your device being trusted to handle payments.
Considering it’s a heavily regulated industry, I think what you’re asking for is impossible.
Get a physical bank card with contactless payment?
I have one, but sometimes I forget/don’t want to bring my wallet and it is a good failsafe
Didn’t someone cut out the rfid chip on their card and make a ring out if it? You might go the same and duct tape it to your phone /into the phone case.
Low-tech solution: tape your card to the back of your phone
This is the best suggestion I’ve seen so far lol
Slightly higher-tech solution: 3d print a phone case with a card slot in the back.
Or get one of those flip-open ones with card slots. Or just a basic rubbery one and put the card in there!
There is Samsung Pay, Garmin Pay, Fitbit Pay, but all are big cooperations too and I think some only work on wearables. Another alternative are payment rings with a card in them.
Fitbit is owned by Google now I think. But I agree a competitor like Samsung or Garmin is probably the best compromise without a major loss of functionality.
Everything in the banking / point of sale space requires certification, thus there are few solutions that enter the space as it is a slow costly process that involves payment processors and banks.
- use the original cards
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Samsung pay
- a few others
- various NFC cloning tools that will raise eyebrows at the checkout (flipper zero)
I remember reading somewhere that a flipper isn’t capable of cloning a card due to the security features built in.
Bummer. Would have been fun to checkout with Flipper.
man, I wish. my bank’s app used to have its own built-in contactless payment option (and it would even appear in Android’s “default apps” section as a payment handler!) but then they moved to Google Pay “due to a popular demand” :/
I personally feel this should be the way. But knowing how bank do their security I don’t have faith in their software engineering as well. It’s 2023 and in Canada most bank ATM still only have 4 digit pin and the online banking login protection are like lagging 10+ years behind.
I personally feel this should be the way.
I personally feel we could do away with Google trying to suck up data about every single purchase we perform
To be fair Google pay is pretty good and reliable in my experience and I’ve seen some really clunky implementations of contactless payment in own-brand apps
Personally I just put my bank card inside my phone cover. Maybe not as fancy as NFC payment, but does the job.
I would do that but I don’t get on with phone covers and cases
I just keep my bank card in the protecyive sleeve of my phone, so it’s jut as easy to pay with it as it would be with my phone. There are of course some pros and cons compared to paying with my phone, but for me it’s important that it also works when I run out of battery.
This would be a perfect solution but I really hate having a case on my phone.
Back in the days you could take the back off your phone I put my card physically inside the phone and that worked alright but that’s not really possible anymore
That looks interesting. Is it accepted for all contactless payments, and are there any limits?
It has a £100 max spend on a single transaction. Requires you to log into the app every £200 as a fraud protection measure. (Any time you log in resets this not just when you hit £200) It is a Visa card. It’s basically a contactless card chip squashed into a ring. I’ve used it for a few years now and the only place I’ve ever had it declined was on a parking meter that had to dial out for approval. it acts like like a top up card, so rather than it linking directly to your account… you set up an auto top up from you bank account to the ringpay account I have mine set to auto top £100 up if the ring account drops below 100.
They do have a limited lifespan though. They expire just like a normal contactless card so you need to buy a new one every 3-4 years.
I checked the app the other day and it tells me I have spent nearly £25k on it in three years so like £700 a month on average with no major problems.
That’s really helpful, thank you! I’ll definitely pick up one once they offer a snazzy color that matches my other jewelry.
I live in Bahrain, a small island near Dubai, and we have out own app called BenefitPay that we use for contactless payments. The app can be used on degoogled devices without issues. Like people said, it’s a highly regulated industry and there are a lot of hoops to jump around to get banks/businesses to accept a new form of payment method unless it becomes regulated by the country you live in.
Would you consider samsung wallet big tech?
They are much smaller than google (user base wise)
I am not entirely sure it can be installed on non Samsung phones and non stock roms
Samsung is about the same size as Alphabet
Samsung, chaebol, is f-king huge.
Right, I was actually only talking about Samsung Electronics, which most people in the West think of when they say Samsung
Honestly I’m fine with using Google pay or Samsung pay I just don’t want them in control of my whole phone
I’ve actually got a Samsung phone would just like to put an alternative OS on it
Not that i am aware of. Our financial system is loaded with proprietary software. The only way i have found to fix it is to opt out as much as possible and use cryptocurrency which is what i have done
I love the idea of crypto as an actual currency but I think that’s probably never going to be widely accepted and stable
I suspect it will. We in the western world (US, Canada, UK, EU, etc) are used to very stable fiat currencies. Ask a person from Argentina, Turkey, etc if they would rather have their national currency or crypto and i bet a lot of them would take the crypto. A 10% fluctuation to them is a blessing to them because if they hold their currency they may drop 100% a year because of inflation.
I mean that’s great if those countries can benefit from it in that way, that’d be awesome to see
Not sure how that’s going to come to Western countries though especially with how resistant to positive change our society seems to be
Also not sure our government would ever do anything that benefits the people and hurts the banks
Edit: also they can just use other currencies that are more stable than their own anyway
I think it will come to the western world at some point. Look at the 10% (governmyth reported) inflation in Europe and the 8% (governmyth reported) inflation we had in the US. the governmyth may have reported 8%, but my electric bill sure didnt stop their. Try more like 21% and you would get close. England is talking of implementing price controls and if that happens you will not be able to get a lot of things except in the grey/free markets. I am not even talking about drugs, I am talking about eggs and milk being sold in the free market. Crypto is great in the free market and not subject to governmyth money printing inflation. Take gold as an example. We have been taught “gold went up today” where the real lesson is “the dollar lost value today”
How about Samsung pay?