Isis, the mobile payments joint venture formed by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile announced Monday that its Isis Mobile Wallet is now available in Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City.

The company claims that nine Isis ready phones are currently available in its carrier stores and another 11 will be added by year end.

Ryan Hughes, chief marketing officer at Isis, said in a statement that this launch represents “an unprecedented level of support for NFC,” the Near Field Communication technology that powers the mobile commerce interaction at the point of sale.

Isis said there are hundreds of merchant locations equipped to handle NFC tap and go payments in Austin and Salt Lake.

Visa, MasterCard and American Express all are supporting the pilot. Presently, an American Express, Capital One or Chase credit card or Isis cash card is required to fund the Isis Wallet.

The Wallet app itself is available at the Google Play store.

Isis rollout had previously been announced for the first half of 2012. The carrier partners eventually decided to involve the large credit card companies in processing payments and that strategy shift is said by analysts to have caused the delays.