China Telecom is gearing up for the launch of a mobile wallet service by putting on standby 30 million NFC-enabled UIM cards for its CDMA network, according to Marbridge Daily.

The actual launch is scheduled for 23 December and the tranche of UIM cards is being readied for projected subscriber demand in early 2014.

The operator will swap free of charge the new NFC-based cards for subscriber’s existing cards. Subscribers also need to have a NFC-based smartphone to use the new service.

The operator has also signed up more than ten banks to its contactless payment service.

Starting in January 2014, China Telecom will gradually switch its 3G handset line-up to NFC-enabled devices. All of its handset range will have NFC functionality. The operator hopes in 2014 more than 40 handset models will support the new mobile wallet.

Rivals China Mobile and China Unicom have already launched mobile payment services.