Telefonica-owned Movistar and Santander Chile, a bank, have launched what they claim is the first m-payment pilot in Chile using NFC.

According to a joint release by the two companies, reported on by BNamericas, Oberthur Technologies is providing the technology platform.

Samsung is contributing NFC-enabled S III smartphones to the pilot, while MasterCard is also said to be involved.

During the trial some 200 “friendly-users” will be able to pay for goods and services at points-of-sale (POS) with the Samsung phones.

Movistar and Santander say they hope to launch the service commercially before the end of the year with up to 5,000 compatible POSs.