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preparing for the 2022 holiday season amid ongoing
The ve
The very point of salery point of sale uncertainties. The NRF anticipates that year-over-year
growth across multiple retail categories will continue
far into the year, with clothing, sporting goods, general
merchandise and furniture among top sellers, he added.

While the NRF congratulated retailers for planning ahead
and keeping shelves stocked, it's clear that payments
service providers also played a pivotal role by delivering
A transformative seamless checkouts and processing transactions at scale.
Mastercard SpendingPulse, published in December 2021,
time in payments charted in-store and online retail sales across all payment
types. It indicated that consumers returned to stores
in record numbers, increasing on-site shopping by 16.5
By Dale S. Laszig percent over the 2020 holiday season.
DSL Direct LLC Positioned for growth

udging from an array of mergers and acquisi- Payments analysts are discussing two notable acquisitions,
tions, new product entries and the National both occurring on Jan. 18, 2022: NMI acquired IRIS CRM
Retail Federation's report of record-shattering and Celero Commerce acquired Omega Technology. Both
J holiday spend in 2021, it would be fair to say transactions appear to have broadened capabilities and
January 2022 was a transformative month in payments positioned participants for growth in the year ahead,
that appears to have set the tone for a productive, profit- according to company representatives. Vijay Sondhi, CEO
able year. at NMI, called the IRIS CRM acquisition "the coming
together of two great companies."
As people returned from vacations and holidays, a flurry
of announcements kept The Green Sheet's news desk busy. Kevin Jones, founder and CEO at Celero Commerce,
We wrote of growing cryptocurrency and BNPL adoption, viewed OMEGA's focus on small and midsize banks as
ETA policy priorities for 2022, and post-pandemic funding complementary to Celero, which he said will enable the
options for struggling SMBs. Throughout the 2021 holiday newly formed company to continue building its "premier
season, we reported retail analyst and payments expert technology-focused, commerce solutions offering for small
predictions of an 8.5 percent uplift in spending across and medium-sized businesses and financial institution
online, in-store and mobile app channels. Then came partners."
the hotly awaited news from the NRF that 2021 sales
outperformed all forecasts. As news of these mergers circulated on social media,
payments professionals joined in the discussions,
Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO, disclosed the congratulating colleagues and friends. Some recalled
final 2021 tally: $886.7 spent during the November- seeing Dimitri Akhrin, founder and CEO at IRIS CRM, win
through-December period, a 14.1 percent increase over first place at the Catapult 2016 Innovation Award at the
the previous year. "Despite supply chain problems, annual Northeast Acquirers Association conference. Like
rising inflation, labor shortages and the omicron variant, many other technology innovators, Akhrin developed his
retailers delivered a positive holiday experience to ISO-focused CRM program as an in-house tool and later
pandemic-fatigued consumers and their families," Shay realized its broad potential to help others.
said. "Consumers were backed by strong wages and record
savings and began their shopping earlier this year than Commenting on the positive impact these transactions
ever before." may have on the small business community, Nikki Estes,
digital marketing specialist at iCheckGateway.com, stated
Strong economic indicators that these mergers can inspire a new generation of tech-
driven entrepreneurs helping local business owners
NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz agreed. Remarking achieve sustainable growth. "What a profitable venture
that the 2021 holiday season "was the strongest November for all involved," she said. "Cheers to the teams that serve
and December we've ever seen," he said he expects 2022 their communities and make this kind of effort happen."
to follow suit with continued retail momentum. Worries
about inflation and COVID-19 put pressure on consumer Pillars of progress
attitudes but did not dampen spending, and sales
remained strong, he stated. As Kleinhenz noted, consumer attitudes are driving
robust spending, which shows no signs of slowing
Kleinhenz further noted that consumer demand is down. And as others in our industry have noted, ever-
driving the economy, and retailers are already proactively changing consumer expectations have inspired financial
institutions and third-party service providers to up their
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