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.
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
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.
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" :/
There are other payment solutions. I have never used them and do not know how widely they are accepted. Maybe Paypal, Venmo, and Square have POS solutions. I do not think they are NFC. Maybe QR-code based? This is from memory. Maybe someone else knows more.
But yes beyond the ones people talked about, crypto, and the three I mentioned I am not sure there are any others in the US.
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)
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 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.
You would hope tech like that would eventually propogate to the rest of the world but doesn't seem like anyone with money really cares about the wants and needs of consumers (and existing contactless systems already make it easier than ever for people to fork over their cash) so it probably won't