Princeton, N.J.-based Heartland Payment Systems, a credit/debit card processor and campus card solutions provider, has reported fourth quarter net income of $8 million. That compares to a net income of $6.8 million for the same quarter in 2007.
Net revenues in the fourth quarter were $100.1 million, an increase of 31.3% compared to $76.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Excluding Network Services, net revenue was up 9.7% to $83.6 million.
Card processing volume for the fourth quarter increased 23% to $16.5 billion, including $2.5 billion volume from Heartland acquisitions. Transaction processing volume and net revenue growth were limited by the general slowdown in economic activity in the fourth quarter, including a 6.8% decline in same store sales.
Heartland chairman and CEO, Robert Carr, also addressed the security breach Heartland suffered late last year. “Clearly our biggest challenge in 2009 will arise from the system breach. There are two main components to the challenge we face: addressing claims that cardholders, card issuers, the brands, regulators, and others have asserted, or may assert, against us arising out of the breach and managing the potential impact of the breach on the day-to-day operations of our business.”
He said Heartland intends “to vigorously defend any such claims and we believe we have meritorious defenses to those claims that have been asserted to date. At this time we do not have information that would enable us to reasonably estimate the amount of losses we might incur in connection with such claims.” ![[end]](/resources/bullet/contactlessnews-4.gif)
