Finance: More flash than cash

Our latest quarterly Referendum study looked at small business attitudes to IT, and if or how they think it can, or will, shape their business in the years ahead. Our study showed a fairly mixed response. In terms of investing in technology, 35% of firms said they were looking to upgrade existing systems rather than spending on all new set-ups. A significant 31% were not looking to invest at all in the coming year.

By Mel Daris:In addition to allowing people to share documents, music and other media, Near Field Communication, or NFC, also allows customers to pay for goods and services at participating retail outlets using bank or credit card information stored on NFC chips (the exchange of information occurs when two NFC devices come into close proximity with each other).

Another financial institution entered the lucrative mobile payment fray Wednesday as Canada’s largest bank teamed up with Interac to demonstrate touch-free debit transactions for smartphones. With a fast-payment-for-fast-food flourish, Royal Bank of Canada showed off its new Interac application at a McDonald’s restaurant in Toronto using BlackBerry smartphones.

Square's payment volume is growing exponentially.

By Chris Katje: On Thursday, Paypal announced two new deals that should keep the eBay (EBAY) subsidiary ahead of the game in mobile payments. The ever increasing number of companies in the mobile payments field makes both announcements a big deal for shareholders of eBay's stock. Paypal continues to drive the company forward as its auction business takes the backseat.

Robert Weinstein submits:Google, Inc. (GOOG), VeriFone Systems Inc. (PAY), MasterCard Inc. (MA), and Citigroup Inc.

By Trefis: Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) is clearly not in the mood to just stand by and watch as technology firms like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Square, PayPal and LevelUp eat into the market share of banks and credit card companies in the payments market with mobile payment offerings.

Shah Gilani submits: With the emergence of handset-driven e-commerce technology, banks, mobile-phone sellers and telecom-service providers are working feverishly to cook up a profitable recipe for the fast-growing mobile-banking business. But with so many players setting up shop - and so many potential new mobile-payment services on the menu - the safest profit play for investors may be the one that's able to deliver all these services to end -users. And we've identified a clear early leader.