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.
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How is this even a response? Oh, just do what you deem appropriate and nothing else? Get outta here with that nonsense.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting the convenience of NFC payments and wanting it to also be not reliant on the built-in Google option.
I think we can engage in a more constructive conversation than that.
Because I sometimes forget/don’t bring my wallet and use my phone as a backup just incase
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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.
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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.
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Banks in the US often do not provide contactless cards. Contactless payments are only starting to gain some traction since the pandemic… beforehand it was pretty rare, at least on the east coast (I get the sense that other regions of the country were better about this). It is actually madness, though.
Big banks have been contactless is mostly the smaller banks. The bigger reason is for ease of access or reduced wallet size. If you have multiple credit cards or store cards you don’t have to carry them all around with you…
This has not been my experience at all. I’ve had tap for over a decade in Canada, and large banks in the US here did not give me contactless cards a few year ago. In the past couple of years they seem to be rolling out more of them, but people always looked at me like I was a lunatic whenever I tried to tap my Canadian card to pay for something.
Hmm OK I think our timescales are what are mismatched. I got my first tap card 4 years ago.
About four years ago I got a letter from my bank warning me the magnetic stripe on my card can only be used if I travel to certain countries (e.g. the USA). Any attempt to use it domestically will fail as they will assume the card has been cloned. We still have mag scanners at all the stores, for the Americans who visit.
Contactless payment is ubiquitous in most of the world, though often there are limits on the transaction size (those limits seem to be increasing lately).
Yeah, I think we’re mostly in agreement then. I get the sense that some states are ahead in this regard, and I’ve gotten a tap card a few years ago… But it’s still not 100% standard. Not all my cards support contactless payments here, while they all do in Canada (and have for over a decade).
Payment on the east coast has been pretty painful in my experience. I think it’s rapidly gotten better during the pandemic years with more places supporting contactless payments and stuff. It’s pretty common that places won’t accept cards, so you need to carry cash. Contactless payments were pretty rare until they got a big boost post 2020, and restaurants generally won’t split the bill for you (in Canada they’ll just bring the machine to the table and you can pay separately easily). I thought all of America was like this for a while, but it sounds like it might depend on the state.
Well you kept apologizing for it. We Americans aren’t accustomed to that.
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
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.
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
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.
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”
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
