Heartland Payment Systems

Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. is a Fortune 1000 company that provides debit, prepaid, and credit card processing, mobile commerce, e-commerce, check processing, payroll services, billing services, marketing services, security technology, lending services and a growing line of industry-specific business facilitation solutions for small to mid-sized merchants and enterprises. Founded by Robert O. Carr in 1997, Heartland Payment Systems is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. There are also offices nationally in Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Oregon, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Arizona, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Transaction volume

Heartland Payment Systems provides payment processing for more than 275,000 business locations in the United States and processes more than 11 million transactions a day and more than $80 billion in transactions a year.^[3] Heartland is ranked the 6th largest payment processor in the country by transaction volume, 8th largest by transaction dollar value and 9th in the world.

Historical Highlights

Founded by Robert O. Carr, Heartland processed its first card transaction on July 15, 1997 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HPY) on August 11, 2005.

Merchant Bill of Rights

In 2006 Heartland introduced The Merchant Bill of Rights, a public advocacy initiative that educates merchants about fair payment processing practices. ^[4]

Security breach

On January 20, 2009 Heartland announced that it had been "the victim of a security breach within its processing system in 2008".^[5] The data stolen included the digital information encoded onto the magnetic stripe built into the backs of credit and debit cards; with that data, thieves can fashion counterfeit credit cards by imprinting the same stolen information onto fabricated cards.^[6] One estimate claimed 100 million cards and more than 650 financial services companies were compromised; at the time, it was characterized as the largest ever criminal breach of card data.^[7]

An American computer hacker, Albert Gonzalez, was sentenced in March 2010 to 20 years in prison for his role in the hacking ring that broke into the Heartland computer systems.^[8]

On May 1, 2009, Visa and Heartland issued a statement that Heartland successfully validated its compliance with PCI DSS and was returned to Visa's list of PCI DSS Validated Service Providers.^[9]

Fortune 1000

On May 17, 2010, Heartland announced its debut on the list of America’s largest companies at #954.^[10]

End-to-End Encryption

On May 24, 2010, Heartland commercially launched E3 end-to-end encryption technology designed to safeguard credit and debit card account information from the moment of card swipe and through the Heartland network. Several days later, on May 8, 2009, Gartner Analyst Avivah Litan stated that Heartland "is basically leading the way for the rest of the industry." She also characterized its plan for end-to-end encryption as the first effort of its kind in the US.^[11]

Despite Ms. Litan's declaration to the contrary, Heartland did not "led the way for the rest of the industry [ostensibley in the field of data security]" while still in the wake of their 2008 data breach, the industy's largest theft of financial data at the time. Neither did Heartland produce the industry's first E3 initiative in 2009; other processors to include Worldpay US and several First Data ISO's announced E3 initiatives at the same time that Heartland announced theirs.^[12][13]

Open letter to the Electronic Payments Industry

Following a keynote address to the Strategic Leadership Forum of the Electronic Transactions Association in October of 2013, Heartland CEO Bob Carr published an open letter to the electronic payment processing industry urging an end to unethical, dishonest and illegal pricing practices, referencing the practice of deliberately falsifying interchange rates, deliberately falsifying merchant category codes (MCC), and the use of confusing small print to extort large fines from merchants.^[14]

Litigation against Mercury Payment Systems

In January 2014, Heartland sued the company Mercury Payment Systems, an electronic payment provider, for alleged false advertising and "other deceptive trade practices".^[15] The lawsuit concerns interchange fees charged by credit card networks and alleges violations of the Lanham Act and state laws.^[16]

Heartland Secure

In May 2014, Heartland Secure is launched. Backed by a breach warranty, Heartland Secure combines three technologies to provide merchants with security and guard against monetization of stolen card data.

Acquisitions

• October 11, 2011 – Heartland School Solutions acquired School-Link Technologies, Inc., a privately held provider of comprehensive K-12 school nutrition and point-of-sale (POS) solutions.
• July, 9, 2012 – Heartland acquired LunchByte Systems, Inc., a school foodservice back office management and point-of-sale (POS) company led by its NUTRIKIDS® solution of menu management, inventory management and POS solutions for K-12 administrators, staff, parents and students.
• December 17, 2012 – Heartland expanded its Campus Solutions division by acquiring ECSI, a leading provider of customized payment processing solutions for the high education industry.
• January 7, 2013 – Heartland expanded its Payroll Services business by acquiring Ovation Payroll, a leading U.S. payroll outsourcing company that offers payroll tax preparation and administration, internet payroll reporting, direct deposit, and other services.
• April 10, 2014 – Heartland acquired MCS Software, an innovative provider of school foodservice point-of-sale (POS), back office and online payment solutions for more than 4,000 K-12 schools nationwide.
• August 14, 2014 – Heartland announces the acquisition of Leaf, creator of a mobile Point-of-Sale (POS) tablet specifically designed for commerce. Leaf’s cost-effective product helps retail stores, restaurants, and other local merchants improve the speed and ease of checkout and offers easy-to-use business management, analytics, and customer engagement.
• September 4, 2014 – Heartland acquired TouchNet Information Systems, Inc., an integrated commerce solutions provider to higher-education institutions. TouchNet adds over 600 higher education clients serving over six million students—nearly one-third of the higher-education enrollment in the United States—to Heartland’s Campus Solutions business.
• November 1, 2014 – Heartland announced it will be acquiring Xpient Solutions, an enterprise-level restaurant POS software service.

References

External links

• Heartland Payment Systems. Official site.