An update of Play Services silently blocked intact mobile payments with Chinese ROM, leaving holders Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and OnePlus to discover it only at the cashier.
The latest version of Google Play Services silently disabled the intact payments via NFC to smartphones with Chinese ROM, leaving countless Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and OnePlus devices holders unable to pay with Google Wallet. The problem appeared with version 26.28 and, after intense user reactions, it seems Google has now resolved it remotely, on the backend side.
The exclusion concerned exclusively devices imported or purchased in China, i.e. mobiles with Chinese ROM. Those who bought Chinese smartphone manufacturing Global version in Europe or anywhere else were not affected. With the 26.26 version of Play Services payments operated normally, while from 26.28 onwards Chinese edition holders began reporting that were suddenly unable to complete transactions in NFC terminals, even though Google Pay worked uninterruptedly for years.
The list of affected devices found the Chinese versions of Vivo X300 Pro, X300 Ultra, X200 Ultra, X100 Ultra, X Fold5, X Fold3 Pro and X200 Pro mini, Oppo Find N3 and Find X9 Pro, Xiaomi 17 Ultra and 13 Pro, as well as OnePlus Ace6 and 15T. Reports, as recorded by Notebookcheck, arrived from both Europe and Brazil, without the issue being limited to a specific geographical area.
The cause was identified by developer MarvinFS in post it on the XDA forum. In Vivo X200 Ultra's Play Services log the lines appeared repeatedly «TapAndPay: deviceSupportsTokenization: CN SCU» and «TapAndPay: Disabling TapAndPay HCE service». Once Chinese SCU is identified during an intact payment, TapAndPay HCE service is automatically disabled. «Google Play Services 26.28. 63 recognized Vivo X200 Ultra as Chinese SCU and disabled TapAndPay HCE service. This explains why the Wallet app and Android Wallet role seemed to work properly, while intact payments remained impossible», explains.
Because Google Wallet did not show any error message, the problem was only perceived at the time of payment to a store when the terminal said the card was not supported.
Until Google intervened, users resorted to temporary solutions. One was the reset to an earlier version of Play Services via ADB, but Google Wallet was zeroing and required re-entry of all cards. Another was the definition of a different wallet, such as Curve Pay, as a default payment option. The simplest came from the user «Just Soul» in XDA: exiting all beta programs through Google Play Store settings restored payments, even those who had never registered with a beta.
The latter element strengthened the assessment that it was a bug or a beta that accidentally resulted in final devices. It shows however that Google has, and apparently tests, mechanisms capable of effectively deactivating Google Pay on devices with Chinese ROM. For now, the company has not commented on the matter.
