Apple Pay 'hold near reader' - iPhone 8Plus

I’ve had the iPhone 8 Plus since June 2018. Apple Pay has been working flawlessly until a few weeks ago, it began to intermittently fail only showing ‘hold near reader’ message and not recognising that the phone was in fact near the reader.

Now, I can’t use Apple Pay at all. The fingerprint is recognised and then ‘hold near reader’ is all I see.

I’ve tried removing the case but it has no effect. Hard reboot, software updates etc with the same result.

I spotted another post with the same issue/phone with 33 others reporting having experienced the same thing but the thread is now inactive, so I’m reposting to check if any others have the same issue and if so, was there a fix?

Thanks in advance.