When mobile point of sale solutions began to hit the market three years ago, it was soon clear that enabling merchants to turn smartphones into card processing terminals would disrupt the POS market. It was also clear that these merchants — mostly small-scale service providers who hadn't been able to accept credit and debit cards before — were going to contribute an incremental increase to the total value of credit and debit transactions.

Now Javelin Strategy and Research has put a number on those incremental card transactions. According to a new study, mobile point of sale transactions could account for $1.1 trillion in new card payments every year. That's "trillion" with a "t."

The study also said that mobile POS could expand the existing market for the card payment networks by as much as 20 million merchants.

"The new mobile POS players pose a threat to the traditional POS terminal and acquiring businesses, which must adapt, invest, or acquire," said Mary Monahan, EVP and research director for mobile at Javelin Strategy & Research. "Vendors need to stay informed on competitor moves and react immediately to pricing or feature changes to remain relevant and competitive in today's dynamic POS environment."

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