Payment processing giant Heartland Payment Systems has acquired Leaf, a Boston-based mPOS start-up with its own purpose-built tablet. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Heartland paid $20 million for a majority stake in Leaf last September but has now bought the remaining minority interest.
Unlike its many rivals, such as Square, PayPal Here and the new Amazon offering, Leaf has eschewed plug-in dongles and instead built its own tablet, complete with a magnetic stripe card reader, NFC, EMV, and cameras, making it capable of accepting payments via traditional cards, newer methods such as PayPal and LevelUp, and mobile wallets.
Heartland says that Leaf will operate as a separate business unit under CEO Sarah McCrary, and will be payments agnostic, working with the majority of domestic processors.
Robert Carr, CEO, Heartland, says: "Leaf has accomplished a lot with the purpose-built POS tablet and commitment to empower a merchant's choice of service provider; Heartland clearly sees the potential in Leaf's longer-term vision to provide an open marketplace of business services for small and medium enterprises."