Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE:HPY), the nation's fifth largest payment processor and a leading provider of merchant business solutions, has  announced that it acquired Leaf, implementator 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. Through the acquisition, Heartland demonstrates its ongoing commitment to providing the support and resources needed to execute on the companies’ shared vision of delivering an open and flexible POS platform that makes it easier to run and grow a small business. Leaf will continue to be payments agnostic, working with the majority of domestic payments processors, and continue to build distribution relationships with industry-leading sales organization and partners. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. “Leaf and Heartland value serving customers with fair pricing and transparent business practices, making for a real partnership,” said Robert O. Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems. “We’ve made a significant investment in Leaf and we want to continue making sure it has the resources needed to realize its full potential.” In September 2013, Heartland made a $20 million investment in Leaf and with this acquisition has purchased the remaining minority interest. Leaf will operate as a separate business unit of Heartland, continuing its mission to help small businesses manage operations through an open and flexible technology platform that can best fit their needs. “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,” said Sarah McCrary, Leaf’s CEO. “What we’re doing is a big undertaking, and with Heartland’s backing and full commitment, we can focus 100 percent on the product while knowing that we’ll have the resources we need.” Following the acquisition, McCrary will continue to lead the company as its CEO, and co-founder Sebastian Castro will continue in his role as chief technical evangelist.