A boom in payment-enabled smartphone manufacture and the entry of key phone and finance players into the mobile wallets market has made 2014 a watershed year, as the tide turns against the future use of cash.

Consumers in the US are primed for mobile wallet adoption according to a paper written last month by Javelin Strategy & Research, an America analyst specialising in technology and financial services.

Over half of mobile US purchasers bought physical goods using their smartphones in 2014, up to 51% from only 14% in 2009, Javelin said. Such payments will rise from roughly $3 billion (€2.4 billion) in 2013 up to $53 billion by 2019, the research claimed.

In addition to traditional VCs, mobile point-of-sale startups are seeing investment from the likes of eBay, Mastercard, Starbucks and Verizon to name a few. In other words, the payments landscape continues to get messier.

Mobile PoS startups which enable merchants to conduct transactions and sometimes manage their businesses through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have raised $340M across 34 deals in the last 4 quarters.  Deal growth at the seed and Series B stages suggests increased competition at the early stage and a healthy follow-on investment market for those with early traction.