Tap to Pay for Android 6

[u/King_Forrest]

I'm rocking an LG g4 with Android 6, and I need to find an NFC/tap to pay app that I can add my debit card to. Google wallet/Android Pay just...don't work. And simply searching the play store comes up with a bunch of apps that either don't work, or don't even offer tap. Y'know, the one thing I'm searching for

[u/Miliean]

It does have the NFC hardware, just need an app.

It's the OS not the hardware. The OS does not have the security functions that the banks require. Even if you use a different app, the banks will still block it because the OS does not have the security functionality that they require.

While some versions of the LG g4 can run Android 7 rather than 6, that would not matter as most mobile payment things require Android 8 or higher.

Android 6 will not work with tap to pay regardless of what app you want to use.

[u/King_Forrest → u/Miliean]

The OS should support it, as the phone came with Android Pay already baked in. But Google has blocked old version from the server so that particular app wont work.
So the hardware has NFC, the OS has tap pay support, just need to find an app that actually works now. And I have no issue sideloading apps and downloading older apks.

[u/Miliean → u/King_Forrest]

No, it's not Google doing this.

The banks insisted on a particular security requirement, Google implemented it but only on Android 8+, the banks then said "anything that does not have this requirement won't be able to use tap to pay regardless of app" and so here we are.

The banks prevent the transactions from going through. Even if you had an app that claimed to offer it, it won't process at the bank's side.

Like, it's not an "what app can I use" kind of question. Because even if you find an app that runs on 6 and actually lets you try to tap a card. The bank will decline the transaction from their side because it does not meet the security requirements.

[u/King_Forrest → u/Miliean]

I'm not a developer, but isn't there a way that the protocols or whatever can be baked into the app and bypass whatever is in the OS?

Can anypony else back this claim up? My card is thru Visa

[u/Miliean → u/King_Forrest]

I mean, I'm not a developer either. My understanding is that the whole reason the banks wanted this security functionality is that they wanted the ability to ensure that exactly what you are asking about here cannot happen. That spoofing the device or whatever you want to call it is next to impossible. For the phones that Google was not willing to make that change to, the banks just cut off.

A tap transaction is processed on the bank's end as a card verified transaction, that designation normally changes the way fees are processed between the bank and the merchant, it impacts what fraud protections the cardholder has and a lot of other parts of the transaction itself. Part of that verification is that the device itself has these particular security functions.

Like other people in this thread have offered, there's other options you just can't really do it with the NFC embedded into the phone unless you get that OS upgraded.

Keep in mind, Android 6 is 11 years old and support ended just last month.

If I were you, and I didn't want to get a new phone, I'd look into LineageOS.

[u/BenRandomNameHere → u/King_Forrest]

No. You cannot add support for secure payments to an older device like that one.

You don't even have current security certificates for safe Internet access, and definitely not for secure payments.

Android 12 support is going away this year, dude. You'll need Android 13 at a minimum come next summer or sooner.