I've been working on a personal finance app called FinVantage, and I recently hit a roadblock

Source: Dev.to

The App

• Receipt scanning with OCR – point camera at any bill, AI extracts everything
• Voice input – say “spent 500 on groceries” and it’s logged
• AI insights – actual useful spending analysis, not just pie charts
• Full financial suite – budgets, investments, loans, tax planning
• 100 % offline – all data stays on device, optional encrypted Google Drive backup
• Built with Flutter, using TFLite and ONNX for on‑device AI. Everything works great locally.

The Problem

Google Play rejected the app.
They said SMS/Call Log permissions require an approved Restricted Permission Declaration Form, and the use case (reading SMS for financial data) doesn’t qualify for the exceptions.

What I’ve Tried

• Made SMS the core feature argument (rejected – they said manual input is an alternative)
• Removed the permissions and disabled the feature (app approved, but feature is now “Coming Soon”)

My Questions

• Has anyone successfully gotten Google Play approval for SMS reading in a finance/expense app?
• Is there a legitimate path forward, or is this basically impossible without being a banking app?
• Any alternative approaches? (Some apps use Accessibility Services, but that seems riskier.)
• Should I wait and build a user base first, then reapply?

The app is live without SMS: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.finvantage.app

I would really appreciate any insights from those who have dealt with Google’s restricted permissions process. It’s frustrating to have a working feature that users want but can’t ship.