One of Chile’s largest mobile operators and one of its biggest banks are launching an NFC payment trial in the capital Santiago, with plans for a commercial launch nationally by the end of the year.

Movistar Chile, the brand for Telefónica’s branch operator, has said it would launch the trial and later the commercial project with Banco Santander Chile, using technology from France-based Oberthur Technologies. The NFC-payments service puts a MasterCard PayPass credit application onto SIM cards issued by Telefónica.

Oberthur today said it is providing the trusted service management for Telefónica and Santander, and it is also providing NFC SIM cards to the telco and mobile-wallet software. The TSM would manage the PayPass application issued by Santander over the air.

The trial is being held with about 200 “friendly users,” according to Telefónica Chile. The commercial launch, if it happens by the end of the year, is likely to be small, with about 5,000 PayPass-enabled point-of-sale terminals expected to be available by then.

The trial will use the Samsung Galaxy S III. It's unclear how many other NFC-enabled phone models would be available for the commercial launch.

A representative from Telefónica Chile said in a statement in the Oberthur release that the telco plans other NFC applications besides payment, including transit ticketing and loyalty.

Santander said it is moving to both EMV chip cards and NFC simultaneously.

Other South American operators are gearing up for NFC launches, as well, with Brazilian operators Vivo, TIM Brasil and Claro all planning projects–one or more of them possibly launching before the end of the year.