Is it possible that the Android implementation could be less secure given the lack of a dedicated secure element? Perhaps not, but I am curious why Apple does it that way.
There are ways to mitigate that in software (e.g. by not ever loading long-lived keys into software, fetching them just in time after device attestation etc.), but while that works pretty well for the kind of payments where the terminal needs to be online anyway, it's very risky for offline transactions.
That's why Suica and most other stored-value passes only support iPhones and a handful of specific Android devices that have a secure element (or can use the SIM card as one).