New acquisition for Heartland Payment Systems, Inc.

A final agreement to purchase Alliance Data's Network Services was signed by Heartland Payment Systems, a leading provider of credit/debit/prepaid card processing, payroll, check management and payment services, reported Monday.

In 2007 Network Services business of Alliance Data Systems Corporation processed $17 billion of total annual bank card volume and 604 million transactions. Network Services is included into the industry's 20 largest payment processors.

Heartland, one of the nation's 10 largest processors, handled $51.9 billion of total annual card volume last year.

"We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Alliance Data's Network Services, a leader in the payment processing industry's second largest vertical market," said Bob Carr, chairman and chief executive officer of Heartland. "The petroleum industry's substantial volumes, steady growth and stability in varying economic cycles are attractive characteristics of the Network Services portfolio. This purchase catapults us into a leadership position in the industry segment in which Heartland first got its start.

We will be integrating the Network Services technology into the Heartland platform to achieve economies of scale and leveraging our proprietary technology to offer Network Services clients, Heartland customers and others best-in-class payments solutions."