The deal will allow mobile phone users running Isis to use their handsets at any existing Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express machines. According to Isis, the partnership will expand the payment options available to mobile subscribers by leveraging existing payment credit card infrastructure across the United States.

NFC-based mobile transactions are expected to reach nearly $50 billion worldwide by 2014, according to a forecast issued earlier this year by Juniper Research. Juniper anticipates NFC-based mobile payment services will launch in up to 20 international markets over the next 18 months, with North America and Western Europe together accounting for 50 percent of the worldwide market by 2014.

But Isis isn't the only company that understands the potential revenues from this space. , PayPal, and are all fighting for a chunk of the mobile payment market. Paypal projects its total 2011 mobile payment numbers to reach $4 billion, and Square is handling $4 million transactions every day.

The Isis deal is only the latest, and the most far reaching, of the mobile payment partnerships, signaling the normalization of mobile payments. And though most talk of mobile payments tends to center around the billions of dollars in sales and massive corporate partnerships, the surge of mobile payments should be viewed as a potential boon to the health of small businesses everywhere.

If your company doesn't yet support mobile payments, now is the perfect time to jump on the bandwagon. Here are a couple reasons why: