Owners of smartphones from Chinese brands have encountered an unexpected problem: after updating Google Play Services to version 26.28, the contactless payment function via Google Wallet stopped working. The outage affected devices from Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, OnePlus, and other manufacturers, but only those running the Chinese version of the firmware (China ROM).

Problem confirmed by journalists

The publication Notebookcheck investigated the situation using the Vivo X200 Ultra with China ROM as an example. After installing the Google Play Services update, NFC payments indeed ceased to function. However, within the Google Wallet app, cards were displayed correctly, with no error messages or warnings appearing.

System blocks payments for "CN SKU"

A developer on the XDA forum conducted an in-depth investigation and discovered that after the update, the system identifies the device as a "CN SKU" — the Chinese version of the smartphone. Following this, the Tap-and-Pay service, responsible for processing payments via NFC, is automatically disabled. This could indicate an intentional restriction by Google, although there is no official confirmation of this theory yet.

Which models are affected

According to user reports, the problem has already been recorded on the following devices:

  • Vivo X200 Ultra, X300 Pro, X300 Ultra, X100 Ultra, X Fold5, X Fold3 Pro, X200 Pro mini;
  • Oppo Find N3, Oppo Find X9 Pro;
  • Xiaomi 17 Ultra and other models.

Complaints are coming not only from China but also from Europe and Brazil — meaning owners of devices with Chinese firmware purchased outside of mainland China are also facing the issue.

Temporary solutions and lack of comments

At the moment, users are proposing two temporary solutions: roll back Google Play Services to the previous version using ADB or use alternative payment services, such as Curve Pay. However, neither option is universal and does not suit everyone.

Google has not yet commented on the situation. It remains unclear whether the outage is related to a technical error in the new version of Google Play Services or if the company has indeed started restricting NFC payments on smartphones with Chinese firmware.